Home sweet home
by Hetep-Heres
Summary: Back from a routine mission, Sheppard's team is a bit unsettled at the welcome they get in Atlantis. Back there the city is in a bit of unrest, no one was expecting them, cripples are now inexplicably cured, and where is Weir? McKay is... not exactly himself, there are some new faces, and Sheppard wonders if he still has a place there. Has the universe gone insane?
1. Chapter 1

"So, uh, Teyla," Rodney McKay asked his teammate Teyla Emmagan as the two of them were walking through a meadow on some unknown planet they were exploring, "who's that newly arrived marine you are a bit sweet on?"

Teyla briefly closed her eyes to hide her annoyance, knowing fully well that it was nothing but gentle teasing from her teammate who only recently decided on forcing himself to make small talk to better 'bond' with the rest of the group. Awkward and self-centred Rodney McKay making small talk... who would have thought! Too bad he chose this kind of topic though, but teasing was as good a way as any to get closer to Rodney McKay; apparently that's how his unlikely friendship with Doctor Beckett started, back on their planet when they were both working on the project that was going to send them trillions miles away to the Pegasus Galaxy.

And yet, there could hardly be two people more different from each other than Rodney McKay, conceited and boastful genius physicist as well as grating pain-in-the-neck, and Carson Beckett, overly kind and caring physician as well as unassuming genius geneticist.

Above their heads thunder could be heard and Teyla looked at the sky, almost expecting dark clouds announcing an impending shower of rain. But no, they were lucky and would probably reach the Stargate before the weather turns wet. Hopefully Ronon and Colonel Sheppard were already there so she and McKay wouldn't have to wait for them once at the gate.

This reconnaissance mission was not very successful on their part as they haven't encountered any human being in the immediate surroundings of the Stargate, so Colonel Sheppard had split their group in two pairs so as to cover more ground in their explorations. And this time he had been careful not to burden himself with the constantly moaning McKay complaining about his hatred of anything akin to walking more than three miles on his feet. Hence Teyla ending up with him. Fair enough, she thought, last time Ronon had been the one enduring it. But apparently today McKay was in a rare good hair day, luckily for her, and he was currently less interested in moaning than in making gentle fun of her, _unluckily for her_.

"So," McKay insisted, his voice dripping with the glee he was feeling at teasingly putting his teammate on the hotseat, "this soldier you set your eyes on, who is he?"

"There is no one, Doctor McKay," she quietly answered, "you are being mistaken."

"That's not what Sheppard said," he sing-songed, the teasing in his voice making him sound like a kid in a primary school playground.

"You may have not taken notice of that earlier, Rodney," Teyla patiently replied, "but John Sheppard often uses this kind of diversion to steer the conversation and thus the attention away from his own case."

"Oh, if you're referring to his own interest for the female half of the recent reinforcement our scientific contingent received from the Daedalus, then _yes_ , I noticed. Especially how he tries to be all suave and kirk-y in front of this girl who works in the Chemistry department, what's her name already..."

He racked his brain and snapped his fingers thrice, trying to remember the woman's name, but it was escaping him.

"Doctor N'Guyen, you mean?" Teyla provided. "So you noticed it too..."

Another rumble of thunder was heard, and Teyla sped up a bit.

"N'Guyen, that's it," McKay said, "the German chick who's half Asian. Couldn't remember her name, thank you Teyla."

"Isn't the Chemistry department part of the Scientific department you're managing, Rodney?"

"Yes, of course it is!" he answered with a hint of irritation.

"Then I would think you'd know the name of the people who work under you."

"Do you know how many morons work under me? I can hardly get buddy-buddy with each of them, especially the newbies. If they are a bit above the pathetic average level, then there's a chance they're worthy of me remembering their name. In the mean time, not worth the effort of getting to know each of them."

Another rumble in the sky punctuated his curt statement.

"You _know_ they are very valuable scientists, Rodney, otherwise they wouldn't have been selected for this project and wouldn't have ever set foot in the Pegasus galaxy. You shouldn't be so harsh on your own men!"

"Valuable, valuable, yes, in a way. But still so far behind what we'd truly need here! I mean, since we are talking about the Chemistry department, I'm sure I have more diplomas in my own name than the whole of them altogether!"

"And how many of your PhDs pertain to Chemistry, Rodney?"

Teyla knew she had a point here and relished in shutting up Rodney McKay. All the more so that their conversation had taken a path very far away from their earlier topic, much to her relief.

"That's irrelevant," Rodney retorted with obvious bad faith. "My point is, I cannot know everyone by firstname and surname in such a short span of time, especially considering how busy I've been recently, working on project Arcturus _and_ managing my sister in Atlantis all at the same time!"

"Well, now that your sister is gone and project Arcturus is more or less suspended, you are going to have the time you need to learn who's who in your departments, and everything will be alright."

A flash of lightning above the grey sky surprised Teyla and she instinctively pointed her rifle at the clouds, out of acquired habit.

"Relax, Teyla, I told you all there was rather intense electromagnetic activity in the atmosphere surrounding this planet, don't you guys ever listen to the voice of knowledgeable reason, that is... _me_?"

"Force of habit," she answered, "lightning looks a bit like the Wraith beams dematerialising people to gather them inside their darts. But I think we should hurry a bit if we want to reach the Gate before the pour."

"Hurry a bit? I'm already panting! I have small lungs, Carson confirmed it, it's not my fault I can't walk as fast as you all do! Besides, there's no reason to hurry: if you had paid attention to the genius talking, you'd remember I said this electromagnetic activity has nothing to do with sudden changes of weather, it's usual here and not at all annunciating of a storm, so please slow down a bit, you are going to set my lungs into fire if you go on like that!"

"If you spoke a bit less, doctor McKay," Teyla patiently explained, "perhaps you'd save your breath for the walk..."

Another peal of thunder seemed to approve of her gentle teasing.

"Ha ha, now you're sounding like Carson. Or like Sheppard, for that matter. You have clearly been spending too much time with him," Rodney told her. "Oh, and talking about him, and earlier about Jeannie, I rather have our Kirk-Sheppard try his charm on this Frida N'Guyen than on my sister..."

"Dagmar," Teyla said.

"What?"

"Her firstname is Dagmar, not Frida."

"Oh yes, whatever," he dismissively provided as he waved his hand in a manner expressing clearly how exactly unimportant the woman's firstname was to him.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the grey clouds above their heads, but this time Teyla didn't let it unsettle her and she went on with their conversation.

"It _is_ important, Rodney: people need to know they feel regarded and valued," she said, "it could only make them do better work. Look at Doctor Beckett for instance: everyone in the medical team seems to be special to him, because he _makes_ them feel so. And it makes them better in their job. As your friend, I'm telling you that you should at least give it a try, Rodney. Look at Colonel Sheppard, too: he learned the names and faces of all the new military recruits even before the Daedalus beamed them in Atlantis."

Surprisingly, Rodney had a smirk and shot her a sidelong glance.

"And talking about these new recruits," he told her in a happy-with-himself voice she knew too well, "which of these new marines is the one who caught your eyes? And don't deny it or try to change the subject to Sheppard's many infatuations, this time!"

Exasperating. This was the word that best described Rodney McKay, Teyla thought on this precise moment. Infuriating.

Especially when he was spot-on right!

She tapped her earset radio and called their other teammates as much as for diversion as for actually getting news from them:

"Ronon, Colonel Sheppard, do you copy?"

But the only answer she got was a crackling sound covering two or three syllables she didn't manage to understand.

"Hello there," McKay sing-songed in a slightly irritated voice, "electromagnetic interference, remember? It's impeding our radio signal, so you're wasting your time. Does anyone ever simply _listen_ to what we scientists say, or are we here in the Pegasus Galaxy just because we are very decorative?"

He sighed.

"I told Elisabeth the signal transmitted by the MALP was scrambled by the high level of electromagnetic activity we had the time to monitor before everything went frizzly and staticky, but it was enough for us to confirm that human life was sustainable on this planet so she sent us, and apparently Sheppard translated it as 'we can split and still keep in touch through radio'! These GI-Joes, I swear..."

And here he was again, ranting over and over. Teyla was used to it and mentally tuned him out, letting him get his annoyance out of his chest. In the more than two years she had been knowing him, she had learned it was this way of venting which helped him cope with the constant stress of feeling threatened by all the new enemies the Earthlings discovered in this alien galaxy.

Some more bolts of lightning and rumbles of thunder accompanied his monologue all along.

"Ah, look!" Rodney finally exclaimed, "the Stargate! None too soon!"

"And Colonel Sheppard and Ronon are already there, good!" Teyla added.

"About time!" Sheppard shouted from where he was standing near the Dial Home Device. "We agreed on not more than three miles inland, what have you two been doing that delayed you so much? Picking flowers?"

"Yes," McKay sarcastically retorted, "Teyla and I just thought Elisabeth would appreciate a lovely bunch of wild daisies or of whatever is their equivalent here on this planet." He paused and became serious again. "What do you think? We're supposed to be explorers, so we were exploring!"

"And have you found anyone, or any sign of human activity around here?" Sheppard asked.

"Not even an animal, a mere chicken, or anything worthy of being cooked and eaten..." McKay answered. "What about you two?"

"Not a soul either. Let's go back to Atlantis and report to Weir before we get hit by a bolt of lightning or before we're flooded by the rain."

Rodney had an exasperated sigh.

"As I explained to you at some considerable length before this mission, the thunder here does NOT mean storm or rain, it's the usual state of the atmosphere here and has nothing to do with rainfall. And everything to do with interfering with our radios and all kind of electromagnetic device we brought with us. Like life-signs detectors, incidentally. I'm pretty sure I told you that in Elisabeth's office, then later in the Gate room before we went through the wormhole, and then exactly here, when you suggested we split in two pairs. Rings any bell, or are you getting prematurely doddery with memory issues?"

"Alright, alright, Rodney, you were right and I was wrong, I get it. And yes, I should have listened to you. Happy?"

"Delighted," he retorted through gritted teeth. "Except for the six-miles hike in the indigenous countryside."

"Don't complain, Rodney, it's good for you to get your nose out of your lab from time to time to go offworld!"

"I spend plenty of time offworld, as much as you do in fact since we are in the same team, so keep this scolding for Carson next time he baulks at going on an offworld mission!"

A flash of lightning drew a white zigzaggy line in the sky, and a louder rumble of thunder covered whatever Sheppard said, so he had to repeat it:

"Just to make sure this planet is truly inhabited we'll come back later with a Puddle-Jumper and fly farther inland."

This time McKay couldn't help an exasperated outburst, so loud that this one covered the second peal of thunder rumbling above their heads:

"Oh, for the love of Schrödinger! What part of _'electromagnetic intense activity interferes with technologic devices'_ didn't you understand the first ten times I said it?"

"Jumpers are Ancient technology, Rodney, not mere human-made laptops or earsets!"

"Life-signs detectors too, and yet there's static on the screen! If we take a Jumper here, there's a chance we'll crash within a dozen miles flight. Remember that planet with all the kids, one or two years ago? The Jumper fell like a stone and wouldn't so much as let us switch on the light inside."

"So what do you suggest? That we come back with bicycles or horses to explore this land, so that our means of transport wouldn't be affected by the EM environment? Well, bad news: we never thought about bringing either mountain bikes or horses to Atlantis, sorry."

"What is a bicycle?" Teyla asked.

"Didn't you have these on Athos?" Ronon surprisingly asked her. "Very small vehicle with two wheels, for one person only, propelled by the rider's legs. You straddle it like a horse."

"Were there bicycles on Sateda?" McKay asked, surprised.

"Course. Had one when I was a kid. And on another level there were also cycling races organised around sport fields, people used to bet money on it."

"A Satedian mix between betting on horses and track cycling of some sorts..." Sheppard summarised. "Interesting..."

"Yes, but people started losing interest in it, 'cause of many cases of cheating, using drugs to enhance performance."

"Oh, sounds disturbingly familiar," McKay said.

"All too familiar," Sheppard agreed.

"And then a Wraith ship attacked Sateda, and cheating at sports and gambling became the least of our concerns..."

Teyla had only time to innerly reflect that Ronon had become chattier in the recent months before lightning hit the top of a very high fir-like conifer two hundred yards away from them, making the tree fall to the ground. McKay squealed and almost jumped out of his skin, Sheppard flinched and turned to look at where sound was coming from, Teyla instinctively reached to her riffle and Ronon had already drawn his gun and was pointing it at the poor and innocent falling tree.

"Let's dial Atlantis before one of us is struck by one of these bolts," he wisely suggested as he lowered his gun.

"Yeah, there's no place like home..." Sheppard said as he pressed the first symbol of Atlantis's address on the DHD.

He proceeded further and as he released the last button and the seventh symbol lit up on the giant ring, a cracking sound akin to a very short explosion had them all sharply turn to the Gate where the loud bang was coming from.

Them all, really? Not exactly: Rodney McKay, who had been standing in front of Colonel Sheppard on the other side of the DHD had ducked under it as the four of them could feel the ground shake a bit under their feet.

Ronon was the first to recover from the surprise and he soberly commented:

"Wow, that one was close."

"To say the least," Teyla added, grateful for the giant metallic ring playing the role of lightning rod, otherwise the bolt might have indeed hit one of them.

In the mean time the wormhole had been established and had settled, just waiting for them to walk through the gate.

"There's a saying on Earth claiming that lightning never strikes the same place twice," Sheppard told them. "I'm not terribly eager to test if it's true or not."

"There's no technical reason for it to avoid a spot it has just struck if the ground gets quickly positively charged again," McKay said, getting out from under the DHD. "In fact lightning always searches the preferential path to the ground, which depends on the density of the charg–"

"RODNEY!" Sheppard interrupted. "You'll give us a lecture on physics later, for now let's not rot here unless we want to end up roasted or barbecued..."

He then climbed the few steps leading to the ring, sent his ID-code for Atlantis to open the forcefield shield protecting the city from unwanted visitors arriving through the Stargate, and finally stepped through the event horizon humorously shouting:

"Honey, we're home!"

"And there's no place like home..." Rodney murmured as he followed him.

"Rodney, wait!" Teyla called.

"Too late," Ronon told her, "he's already on the other side. What's the matter?"

"Well, I was going to ask him how he could be sure the electromagnetic static didn't interfere with the signal of the ID-code Colonel Sheppard sent to Atlantis."

"You'll ask him once you're on the other side," Ronon said with a shrug before he too disappeared through the wormhole.

"I really hope I'll be able to," she said for herself, "otherwise it means the four of us will have all crashed against the shield..."


	2. Chapter 2

"Incoming wormhole," the technician on duty watch in the control room announced.

But downstairs in the Gate room, no one seemed to hear it. People there were talking loudly all at the same time, a good twenty persons discussing without listening to what the others were saying.

"HEY, DOWN THERE! I SAID _'INCOMING WORMHOLE!'_ "

The soldiers on duty went around the gate and pointed their rifles at it, ready to fire in case known enemies or hostile strangers came out of the event horizon.

"What teams do we have offworld?" a female voice with a Spanish accent asked from the middle of the small crowd downstairs.

"Raise the shield!" a male voice told from there too, rolling his r's.

"Do we get an ID-code?" another one asked with an impeccable British pronunciation.

"Raise the shield if we don't!" a woman shouted at the control room in a German accent rendered heavy by the urgency.

"Wait a minute, incoming ID-code..." the technician said. "What the–"

He frowned and quickly pressed a button on the console in front of him, but it didn't seem to give the result he expected because he pressed it again, and then again, frantically so, looking panicked.

"THE SHIELD WON'T RAISE!" he shouted to cover the ruckus downstairs. "The ID-code is invalid but the shield won't raise!"

The soldiers on duty around the Stargate adjusted their grip on their rifles and a few of the other military in the crowd drew their handgun to point it at the gate too, waiting for whatever or whoever was going to emerge out of it.

* * *

"Home sweet ho–"

Sheppard's saying remained unfinished when he discovered the sight of many guns intently pointed at him as well as at the Stargate, and he stopped dead in his track. Right behind him Rodney McKay emerged from the event horizon and collided with his back but Sheppard didn't pay attention, busy as he was holding his hands out in front of him and staring at the small crowd of rather edgy people in the Gate room.

"What the– what's going into you, what's happening here?" he finally asked.

Seeing that no one was lowering their guns he finally raised his hands as McKay did the same but went on asking:

"What the hell is the matter here? And what's wrong with you guys?"

Ronon and Teyla joined them and they too frowned as they discovered how they were being welcomed home.

"Hands up!" sergeant Stackhouse barked at them.

"Who are you?" corporal Wilson asked.

 _What?_

"What do you mean, _'who are you'_?" Colonel Sheppard asked. "Are you blind?"

"Who we are?" McKay echoed. "Hey, hello! It's us! And we sent the ID-code just one minute ago, so what's wrong...?"

"I know we're a bit early on the schedule," Teyla added, "but the local atmospheric situation had us cut the reconnaissance mission short, as doctor McKay will explain in the debrief."

"The ID-code you sent has been invalidated long ago, so tell us, where did you get it?" doctor Zelenka told them rather aggressively.

"Identify yourselves!" doctor Kavanagh commanded.

"Invalidated?" Sheppard said before Kavanagh's request reached his consciousness. "Are you crazy? That's my personal ID-code I just sent, and it was still perfectly valid last time I used it four days ago!"

"But who are you and what do you want from us?" doctor Kusanagi asked.

McKay looked at her like she had just grown a second head, and in the meantime two soldiers among which Teyla recognised Sergeant Bates relieved them of their rifles and guns. Even Ronon had to let him take his blaster away.

"On your knees, and hands behind your head!"

Although very confused, Sheppard didn't want anything unfortunate to happen to his teammates so he set the example for them by complying, even though he protested against this strange kind of welcome.

"Have you all gone insane here? Call doctor Weir," he said with a look at Elisabeth's office upstairs, "and whatever misunderstanding there is, we'll clear it all together."

This mere sentence had to behold some kind of magic, because it had the merit of shutting almost everyone around.

Then a voice Sheppard knew he knew but which he didn't immediately identify reflected aloud:

"They don't look like Geniis..."

"Which is more or less typical of the Genii," a voice retorted in a strong Scottish accent, "more than often they don't look what they truly are!"

 _Geniis?_ What Geniis? Was Beckett mistaking them for Geniis? Of course the Genii could easily forge copies of their uniforms, and perhaps re-use guns they had previously taken from them, but how would they have faked his team's faces and voices?

"Then run your damn DNA-tests on us, Carson," he offered to end this craziness, "and you'll see we really are who we say we are!"

"But precisely you DIDN'T say who the hell you are!" the woman who just brought up the Genii in this conversation said from within the crowd. "You were earlier told to identify yourself but you ignored this command!" she added as she stepped out of the crowd to the forefront of it.

And thanks to this move Sheppard finally remembered whom this voice and accent belonged to, as he associated a face with it. Before his eyes stood the resident expert linguist of the Atlantis expedition, Eleni Tsavidou.

 _Stood,_ yes. On her _feet_.

Which unsettled John Sheppard greatly.

"Okay..." he heard Ronon murmur for himself, "now _this_ is not normal."

"Yeah," Sheppard agreed, "I think this time I'm the one who'll need to sit down..."

And so did he, sill kneeling but slumping a bit until he sat on his heels. Because last time he checked, Eleni Tsavidou was confined to a wheelchair. Had been for at least a decade, as far as he and everyone else in Atlantis had been told when she arrived with the first scientific and medical reinforcements, just after they were able to get in touch with Earth again after more than one year stranded in the Pegasus galaxy on their own.

"Carson..." Sheppard finally managed to let out in a low and drawling voice, "we all know here you're a genius who can work medical miracles, but when I say _miracle..._ it was only figuratively speaking until now..."

And he waved at Tsavidou's standing stance.

"What the hell happened to her?" Ronon more concisely asked.

Everybody else in front of them frowned, visibly puzzled by their words.

"Hey," doctor Biro told the others, pointing a finger at Colonel Sheppard, "I think I know why this one looked so familiar to me... The portrait in the mess hall, the one near the eastern bay window..."

"Aye, I didn't dare suggest it but yes... except the hair is much longer and messier," doctor Beckett agreed with his colleague, "and the stubble," he added. "...The lad with the strongly expressing Ancient gene, Major Sheppard..."

"Yes, I too thought so..." Sergeant Bates echoed. "But how could it b–"

"Replicators!" doctor Zelenka burst out. "They're possibly replicators who took real people's facial features!"

"Radek, have you gone insane?" Rodney squeaked. "We're not replicators!"

"And here we're back to the medical examination and the DNA testing to prove you who we are!" Sheppard said with a sigh. "It seems there's no other way out of this insane situation..."

"Could they be replicators without knowing it?" Doctor Kusanagi asked Zelenka.

"We're NOT replicators!" Ronon growled, making everyone go silent for a whole second.

"Then who the hell are you?" Sergeant Stackhouse asked.

"What d'you mean, 'who are you'?" Rodney squealed with annoyed irritation. "We're _us_ , that's who we are! The ones and only true us, that's it!"

"Doctor Biro, it's me, _Teyla_ , we had breakfast together in the mess hall earlier this morning, remember?"

"And _we_ ," Ronon told corporal Wilson, "practiced hand-to-hand combat yesterday night in the training room, have you already forgotten? Sorry 'bout your shoulder, by the way."

"My shoulders are perfectly fine," Wilson retorted, "and I spent yesterday night catching up on sleep."

McKay frowned.

"Radek," he asked Zelenka, "don't you really recognise me?"

"Doesn't _any_ of you recognise us?" Teyla echoed.

"Carson," McKay asked doctor Beckett, "have you ever heard of cases of collective amnesia? Of a drug likely to cause it? You know, like this time when everyone was under this Lucius's spell due to some pheromones acting on the brain..."

"Collective amnesia?" Ronon asked him. "Seriously?"

"Unless you have a better explanation to their weird behaviour?" Sheppard retorted.

"We've seen stranger things in the recent years, after all," Teyla said, "and been faced with odder situations."

"We're not amnesic," an indignant nurse claimed, "we're perfectly alright!"

"Aye! Otherwise, I wouldn't remember that this lad's face is the carbon copy of Major Sheppard's!"

"You're a bit behind the times, Carson: I'm not a major anymore, it's lieutenant-colonel now, remember; in fact it's been so for some time already..."

"Like your exact military rank matters right now, really!" McKay whined. "Don't be so touchy, Sheppard!" Then he looked at the airman still pointing their rifles at them: "Look, the blood flow in my arms is being cut off... I have poor circulation, couldn't we lower our hands, now?"

"You'll lower your hands when we say so," a voice Teyla, Sheppard and McKay knew all too well told them.

Sheppard's eyes grew wide when its owner stepped out of the crowd.

"F– FORD...?"

" _Aiden_...?" Teyla softly asked, taken aback. "Is that really you?"

McKay simply gaped.

Lieutenant Ford was standing in front of them, in the flesh. And his face was looking... normal. The way it was before, before his duel with a Wraith in the ocean, before the overdose of Wraith enzyme. No ink-black left eye, in fact his eye was looking just as normal as the right one.

Many people in front of them exchanged looks, but neither of the four of them paid any attention until Zelenka frowned and asked them:

"How comes you know us, our faces, our names and firstnames...?"

"And how comes a major suddenly shows up as a lieutenant-colonel?" Tsavidou asked.

Sheppard snapped his fingers as his face lit up with a flash of comprehension:

"Time travel!"

McKay seemed to consider the possibility for a quarter of a second, but then he swept Sheppard's proud expression away from his face with just a few words:

"Never in the past years we've known did Tsavidou walk, and why don't they even seem to recognise _me_?"

"Right, you're quite memorable, Rodney," Sheppard told him. "And no, that's _not_ a compliment."

"They don't seem to remember me either," Teyla calmly remarked.

Rodney was frowning again and Sheppard knew this look on his face: he was thinking hard, at top speed of his highly capable brain, and his teammates knew he was combining several thoughts together to test Sheppard's theory.

"There wasn't any blackhole reported in the vicinity of either the planet we were exploring or Atlantis," McKay said very fast, "so unless there had been an unmonitored solar flare... But it wouldn't explain the miraculous cure of paraplegia we're currently witnessi–"

"What's a solar flare?" Ronon simply asked.

"It's an astral phenomenon," McKay explained, visibly annoyed by the interruption. "An explosion in a star's atmosphere, with sometimes coronal mass ejection which can interfere with the matter strea–"

"Not now, Rodney!" Sheppard interrupted rather rudely.

"Okay, Okay, let's just summarise for Conan the Barbarian here: it's a phenomenon which, combined with the activation of a Stargate, can send the travellers back or forward in time if it hits the matter stream between the two connected gates. Concise enough for your liking, John?"

"See? When you put your heart to it, Rodney..." Sheppard replied.

"There's been no solar flare nor blackhole anywhere near here," Zelenka confirmed.

"Yes, yes, I already said so, Radek!" McKay snapped at him. "And no blackhole except the giant one in your brain would have made you forget everything about me."

"Well, there's been no solar flare," Teyla said, "but perhaps the bolt of lightning which struck the Stargate when Colonel Sheppard activated it had the same effect?"

"What? What lightning?" McKay asked.

"The one that almost broiled us when the wormhole establish-"

"What? This thunderbolt hit the Gate? Precisely when the wormhole was being created?"

"Yes, Rodney, and you would have seen it as clearly as we did at the time hadn't you been so busy ducking under the DHD for cover!"

But McKay wasn't listening anymore and was in full thinking-hard-mode, snapping his fingers four times in a row; then his eyebrows rose halfway to his prematurely receding hairline.

On stairs in front of them, Radek Zelenka's face mirrored Rodney's. _Lightning, lightning... electromagnetic discharge and establishing wormhole..._ He finally pointed at the group of still kneeling newcomers as McKay's face lit up with the flash of genius his teammates and colleagues were so used to. He looked at Zelenka who looked back at him. Then both physicists spoke at the same time, like duettists:

"Parallel universe!"


	3. Chapter 3

Sheppard slowly lowered his arms and turned to McKay, clearly stunned.

"Did you say 'parallel universe', Rodney?" he asked. "You mean, they all come from an alternate reality?" he added, referring to the crowd in front of them.

McKay sighed heavily, clearly expressing what a burden it was for a genius like him to have to put up with dimwits with such narrow outlooks like the rest of his team.

"No, John, I mean that we ARE in an alternate reality, you nitwit! We landed in an alternate space time through the Stargate!"

Meanwhile, every head in the crowd had turned to Zelenka, and doctor Kavanagh perfectly summarised the general stupefaction when he asked Radek:

"You mean they're from an alternate universe?"

Then all eyes turned to the newcomers again and doctor Biro murmured:

"That would at least explain about this Sheppard..."

"And also why they asked for Elisabeth..." Kavanagh added likewise.

 _Definitely a different reality,_ Teyla reflected inwardly. The doctor Kavanagh they knew would certainly never refer to doctor Weir as 'Elisabeth'...

She slowly stood from her earlier kneeling position before being allowed to, and calmly told the large group of people in front of her:

"Perhaps my companions could get on their feet too, with your permission? I swear we mean no harm, and anyway you took our weapons away..."

She didn't add that Ronon certainly still had at least two knives hidden somewhere on him. Who needed to know this fact, right now?

"And perhaps we could also start with the introductions...?"

Several heads nodded in the crowd and the armed guards around them relaxed a bit as they slightly lowered their rifles.

"Thank God!" McKay sighed as he hauled himself up. "My legs were beginning to go numb."

"Thank you," Sheppard more diplomatically told the crowd. "Teyla, would you mind making the introductions, please?"

She agreed with a nod of her head.

"My name is Teyla Emmagan, and my companions here are doctor McKay," she said as Rodney raised a hand and wriggled his fingers in an awkward 'hello', "Ronon Dex," she added as Ronon didn't move or bat an eyelid, "and our teamleader here is Lieutenant-Colonel Sheppard," she finished, stressing his military rank.

" _Doctor McKay?_ " doctor Kusanagi said, disbelieving.

"Then you have a namesake here, doctor" Lieutenant Ford told Rodney.

"So why didn't you say so earlier?" Ronon asked. "Didn't you recognise him?"

"Talking about McKay..." Zelenka said, pointing a finger repeatedly at them, "if you're truly from a different space time you are going to need our help to be sent back there..."

He then climbed to the console desk and bent to the microphone.

"Doctor McKay, please report to the control room," the megaphones loudly echoed all over the place and beyond, with Zelenka's voice and Czech accent, "Doctor McKay to the control room!"

"Oh, no, not again!" Rodney whined.

"What?" Sheppard asked him. "What's wrong? Zelenka is right: I don't doubt your abilities, Rodney, but we'll also need this guy's help to get back home!"

Rodney humphed.

"Hmph! Last time we met an alternate McKay he tried to steal my sister away from me!"

"That's not true, and anyway your sister isn't anywhere near here, so relax and please be civil to the guy... We'll need the help of this Atlantis's chief of Science to get back to our dimension!"

The team was finally allowed to join Zelenka in the control room, and many onlookers surrounded them.

"Well, alternate or not," doctor Beckett said, "I want them in the infirmary for a complete check-up within a quarter of an hour!"

"Beckett is right," Tsavidou said, "and perhaps in the meantime we should confine them in the isolation room?"

Ronon stared at her, still unsettled at seeing her stand on her feet rather than roll with her wheelchair. These parallel dimension things were really a weird thing, he thought, and he wondered where his counterpart was in this version of the universe. Obviously not in Atlantis, otherwise they would have recognised him: he knew he could hardly go unnoticed!

Was this reality's Ronon Dex still running, in an endless race to escape from the Wraiths chasing him like a mere prey? Or had he already been caught and died a horrible death in their hands?

"Yes, you're right, let's bring them directly to the infirmary."

That's how a smaller group of roughly half a dozen people accompanied them to the examination room. As they were still walking in the corridors, Zelenka tapped his earset radio:

"Doctor McKay for Doctor Zelenka, please respond..." A pause. "Yes, me again. Forget about the control room, meet us in the infirmary." Another pause. "I know, but believe me you need to see it with your own eyes. I'll explain when you're here."

Then he growled something they didn't catch but it sounded very much like the Czech grumbles their own Radek Zelenka was used to grouch when Rodney was getting on his nerves. Sheppard even learned a few Czech swears and cusswords over the years, thanks to McKay regularly getting on Zelenka's nerves.

"Seems this reality's McKay is rather similar to ours, after all..." John whispered in Teyla's ear, careful that Rodney didn't catch his words.

Teyla smiled but wondered why no one here seemed to recognise their Rodney McKay's face. Yet she didn't dwell on it because she had something else on her mind:

"Tell me," she finally asked their hosts in general but no one in particular, "please don't take it the wrong way, but I noticed that almost everyone around here seems to either give orders or take decisions. Who's in charge, here?"

"True," Sheppard finally noticed too, "isn't your Elisabeth Weir in charge of Atlantis, here?"

Everyone went silent, and Lieutenant Ford as well as doctor Beckett even stopped walking, making Rodney collide with Carson's back.

Beckett turned to them, looking all serious and even glum.

"You're putting your finger on something, here, lass," he sighed. "Spot on."

"Yes," Radek added, "well, no one's really in charge anymore, that's the problem."

"How so, 'no one'?" Rodney asked.

"Where's your Weir?" Ronon asked. "Isn't she the boss around here?"

"Aye," Beckett said. "Or rather she _was_..."

"Doc', I don't think you should tell them anything anymore..." Ford warned him.

"And why that?" he asked. "If they are Geniis, then they already know, so what's the point?"

"We're NOT Geniis, for God's sake!" Sheppard retorted. "So where's doctor Weir?"

Beckett nibbled on his lower lip, then he looked John in his eyes and answered:

"She died two weeks ago."

"WHAT?" Rodney shouted.

"WHAT?" Ronon echoed.

Then there was total silence for three long seconds.

"What happened?" Teyla softly asked.

"The Genii killed her," Zelenka explained, clearly pained.

He took off his glasses and cleaned these with the bottom of his shirt to keep his composure.

"That's... horrible news," Sheppard said.

"Yes indeed," doctor Biro said with a sigh, "both on a personal as well as human level... and on a functional level too."

"We not only lost our friend," Zelenka said, "we also lost our leader. Hence the rather confused situation you could witness down in the Gate room."

"But didn't she designate some sort of 'second-in-command' in case this happened?" Teyla asked, inwardly referring to the fact that _their_ Elisabeth Weir designated John Sheppard, who also happened to be the military commander on Atlantis, to fill in as deputy-head of Atlantis until Earth appoints someone to replace her in case such an unfortunate fate fell on her.

"Of course she did," Tsavidou answered, "but Colonel Sumner too died in the rescue mission trying to save her..."

Again, everyone around went grim-faced and sorrowful, but Sheppard's exclamation had them snap out of it.

"You mean Sumner was ALIVE? He wasn't drained by the Wraiths right after your arrival here?"

"Oh dear..." Beckett said as Lieutenant Ford looked down, "how horrible... _You_ of all people asking that question..."

"Well, sir," Ford told Sheppard as he raised his head again, "I hate to break that news to you, but I don't know any other way to say it, so... That's in fact precisely what happened to _you_."

"WHAT?"

"Uh... well," Lieutenant Ford explained, "the team on our very first reconnaissance mission was taken by the Wraiths, their queen took you for questioning, and since you refused to say anything, she..."

Ford stopped mi-sentence.

"..fed on you," Beckett clarified, taking over Ford. "Sorry, lad."

"You mean I'm DEAD in this universe?"

"Not _you_ ," McKay told him. "Your counterpart in this reality. Who by no mean is _you_."

"I'm DEAD?" Sheppard repeated, not listening to Rodney.

"Get over it, Sheppard, it was NOT you!" McKay repeated.

"Well, excuse me Rodney if I find it... _disturbing_."

"It happened on the very first day we arrived in this galaxy," Beckett softly said, "that's why many people here didn't remember your face... Sorry lad."

"But _you_ did..." Sheppard pointed out.

"From Antartica, yes. Sheppard carrying the gene too relieved me from having to sit on this damn Ancient chair McKay was working on, so I can tell you I was more than pleased with the lad! But I didn't immediately make the connection with you because, well... firstly it was long ago, secondly he's... well... _dead_ ," Carson apologetically provided, "dead and gone, and thirdly... he looked rather different."

"Different? How _different_? He was a version of _me_ , he couldn't look _that_ different!"

"He had much shorter hair," Ford answered, "flat-top, you know... neat military crew cut."

"Close-cropped, I'd even say," Beckett said as they finally reached the infirmary. "And always freshly-shaven," he added, hinting at Colonel Sheppard's stubble.

Sheppard kept silent for some time, and everyone around respected his weird sense of grieving at hearing of his counterpart's early demise.

"So I died instead of Sumner..." he finally let out.

"Not YOU, John," Rodney exasperatedly growled in a true McKayish way of attempting to comfort his friend, "the _other_ Sheppard. Who by no way has ever been _you_. Parallel dimensions co-exist in an independent way: there are similarities, and there are differences. Like this guy's death as opposed to your survival. Quantum physic–"

He stopped when Teyla put a calming hand on his forearm, silently informing him that right now was not the time for an extensive lecture on the laws of physics. She knew that the way Colonel Sumner died was still a raw wound for Sheppard, and she could only imagine what this apparent reversal of situation could feel like to him.

"Or like our Elisabeth's death," Zelenka added, oblivious to Sheppard's trouble, "while yours is apparently still alive, and in charge."

"So, as your Atlantis's top management has been... er... beheaded, it's a bit of a mess here because no one is really in charge anymore..." Sheppard summarised. "It's been going on for two weeks now and you are therefore probably waiting for the new commander Earth has appointed and is sending here aboard the Daedalus..."

"EARTH?" many voices said all at the same time.

"You mean you were able to keep in touch with Earth in your reality?" Sergeant Bates asked them barely above whisper.

All eyes grew wide around them.

"Earth"... someone murmured dreamily.

"Earth..." another voice said ruefully as a few other sighs could be heard.

"W– w– w– wait," Sheppard said, "you mean _you_ didn't– you've never... gotten back in touch with Earth in your universe?"

"Not since we first set foot in Atlantis," doctor Beckett said. "How could we? All the bloody Zero Point thingy we found in this city were totally flat."

"Indeed," Radek confirmed, "Doctor McKay and I have tried all we could to get something out of these, but they're totally depleted."

"We've been completely stranded here in the Pegasus Galaxy for three years now," Ford told them. "Not you?"

"Only the first year or so," Sheppard answered.

"So not only didn't they find any other ZPM in this galaxy," Rodney stated, "but apparently their SG-C didn't find any to send them to Atlantis either."

"Or," Sheppard said, "their Earth doesn't have any ship like the Daedalus to travel from the Milky Way to the Pegasus galaxy."

"Perhaps they're losing the war against the Ori?" Rodney suggested, which gave Sheppard a cold sweat.

Ronon shrugged.

"How do we get back to _our_ Atlantis, now?" he simply asked to make them focus on their current predicament.

"Excellent question," Sheppard said as a nurse was drawing some blood from his arm.

"That's precisely why we'll need doctor Zelenka's help as well as this reality's doctor McKay to work on this issue with our Rodney," Teyla told Ronon as doctor Biro was checking her blood pressure.

"Talking about that, how's your McKay?" Rodney asked Carson who was checking his pupils with a pocket flashlight. "A cool guy, who easily befriends people? An inspiring scientist, bent on solving the mysteries of the universe...? A born-leader–"

"...who brings out the best in every person working in the Science department?" Sheppard suggested, his voice dripping with irony. "An unobtrusive genius who shares credit with Zelenka, perhaps?"

"That... doesn't exactly sound like the McKay we know, no," doctor Beckett said, sounding a bit puzzled.

"To say the least!" Zelenka added with a chuckle.

"You're telling me..." Ronon said.

"What," Sheppard sarcastically snickered, "you mean you don't have the immense luck of basking in the sweet and charming personality our own McKay here graces us with on a daily basis?"

"Ha... ha... ha..." Rodney sardonically let out, faking laugh at his words. "Very funny, John."

"Hmm... no, not really," Zelenka earnestly answered Sheppard's question. "Our doctor McKay is... brilliant, yeah, of course, no one here thinks about denying it!" He paused. "Yes, McKay is one of the most brilliant scientists I know, probably even the most brilliant – and if you tell anyone I said that, Carson, there will be retribution, I'm warning you! Some egos just don't need to be fuelled," Radek added with a dark look aimed at Beckett. "I mean, clearly overly smart and clever and all... but doctor McKay is also... among the most infuriating people I've ever met, a smartass for sure, an arrogant know-it-all, with about the social grace of a grizzly..."

"Hey!" Rodney protested, feeling slightly offended on behalf of this other doctor McKay, "come on, it can't be that bad, can it?"

"Aye," Carson said, "could sometimes be a real pain in the b– in the _gluteus maximus_."

"And yet you two are buddies!" Sergeant Bates told Beckett. "As thick as thieves!"

"Yes, well, I didn't say it was logical..." Carson replied. "We just like making fun of each other ever since we met in Antartica; you know, pushing McKay's buttons is so easy sometimes..."

"Our doctor McKay can be sometimes rather rude," Zelenka went on for their guests, "almost obnoxious on some occurrences, but when someone makes a habit of saving everyone's neck on a regular basis, you tend to reconsider bearing a grudge at them. Even though McKay is... grating... is narcissic... is bumptious... is–"

"...standing right behind you, Radek!" a female voice said from behind them all.

Rodney flinched. This voice sounded disturbingly familiar. Oh, holy Einstein! This– this was not– couldn't be–

"Doctor McKay!" Zelenka squealed in a choked voice, fidgeting a bit after he almost jumped out of his skin, "Uh... how long have you been–"

"...hearing your rant from the corridor? Well, long enough for me to walk from the transporter to this door, as well as to hear that you'll be forever grateful to me for saving your sorry ass multiple times, Radek. And yes, I accept your eternal gratitude."

Everyone turned to the door where a blond-haired woman dressed in an outfit similar to Zelenka's was standing in the doorway. Yet instead of Radek's Czech flag, a proud red-and-white Maple Leaf was adorning her shoulder.

Teyla, John and Ronon gaped as soon as they saw her, but Rodney had to bend to one side to confirm what he thought he heard, because doctor Beckett was standing in the way and blocking the view.

He pushed Carson to the side, let his jaw almost fall to the ground at the sight of this woman, got on his feet, and finally walked to her.

"JEANNIE?" he shouted, clearly disbelieving, his eyes wide open staring at 'doctor McKay'.

 _Yes,_ Sheppard thought, _there was no mistaking this face:_ this woman really looked like she was this reality's version of Rodney's sister.

"M– Mer– MEREDITH?" she blurted out. "What the– How– What are you doing here?" she asked. "No, no, wrong question," she said to herself. "The right one is rather: how did you get here?"

"That's a good question," Sheppard told her as he stood from the infirmary bed he had been half-sitting on, "and a problem which will apparently require your expertise to be solved to our benefit, if I may be so blunt." He slowly walked to her. "Doctor McKay, I presume?"

Jeannie looked at him, stared, frowned, closed her eyes, opened them again, blinked – _twice_ , gaped, frowned again, and then she finally snapped her fingers thrice and murmured:

"The– the pilot with the gene, right?"

And then she blurted out:

"Aren't you dead anymore?"

Carson sighed hopelessly and then scoldingly deadpanned at her:

"Oh, how tactful and considerate of you, Jeannie!"


	4. Chapter 4

"Just for a minute, I thought my brother finally came to his senses," Jeannie said after Radek filled her in about the odd situation, "that he was in his right mind again, pulled his finger out, got back into physics and joined the SG-C to work on a way to reach us in the Pegasus galaxy..."

She looked rueful at this thought, and then added:

"Too good to be true, I guess. Radek's explanation makes much more sense."

" _More sense_?" Ronon asked, puzzled at her peculiar train of thought. To him, these multiverse things were still an aberration he couldn't fully wrap his mind around.

Rodney's inner reflections, though, were wrapped around something else Jeannie just said:

"What d'you mean, 'got back into physics'? What has your brother been at?" he asked, baffled.

She waved her hand dismissively.

"Oh, let's just say that Meredith is but a huge disappointment."

"Oh right," Ronon let out, being again reminded of Rodney's real name, "I had totally forgotten about this 'Meredith' business..."

Sheppard smirked:

"Believe me, _I_ hadn't..." he tauntingly replied, with an impish look at Rodney.

But they were interrupted by Beckett's obviously astonished voice asking Jeannie wonderingly:

"So you have a brother? You never told me about him!"

"I didn't know either," Radek echoed. "In fact, you never talk about your family..."

Again, she made a dismissive gesture with her hand:

"Not much to talk about, that's why. And yet he could have done rather well, you know: a promising scientist, working on interesting projects, just like me... Really smart and bright, although not _my_ top-level of brilliance, of course, no... But certainly on par with you, Radek. Easily so."

Beckett rolled his eyes at her display of gigantic ego as Zelenka raised an eyebrow, both clearly being just as used to their McKay's boasting as Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon were to Rodney's swell-headedness.

"Then what happened which made him so disappointing in your eyes?" Carson asked.

Jeannie briefly pulled a face.

"He got smitten over some chick, and although their respective jobs were not in the same city, not even in the same state, they got married," she explained. "And when they had a kid, Meredith suddenly thought he couldn't live away from them anymore and wanted to see his daughter everyday, so he resigned from his position in Area 51 and dropped everything to become a stay-at-home dad somewhere in backwater Colorado. A spectacular waste of his brains, as I told him at the time. But he wouldn't listen of course, pig-headed as he is: he's always so convinced that he's right and that anyone not thinking like him is wrong! So, he's now lost for science, probably too busy changing diapers and going to the sandbox," she added, shaking her head in clear disillusioned disbelief.

Rodney, as for him, had blanched and had a look of horror on his face.

"What a nightmare!" he murmured in a strangled voice. "Is he nuts?"

"You know, Jeannie," Beckett told her, "it's been three years since we left Earth, and I don't know how old your niece was at the time, but I very much doubt she's still in diapers anymore by now!"

"That's not the point, Carson!" Rodney exclaimed, forgetting for a minute that it wasn't _his_ Carson Beckett talking here. "Sorry," he said in a much more mellowed voice, "sorry, for a moment I..."

"...pictured yourself enduring a kid's ballet recital?" Sheppard suggested, making Rodney pull the same face as Jeannie did earlier. "Well, remember what you told me earlier, McKay: alternate reality! _He_ isn't _you_ , by no mean!"

"Besides," Teyla gently added, "I am sure he is perfectly happy with his family life back there on your planet."

"Aye!" Beckett said reassuringly. "Certainly."

"Hmph!" Jeannie let out.

"And perhaps he's currently buried under tons of diapers again," Lieutenant Ford added with a chuckle, "if they had another kid since you last heard of your brother!"

Jeannie closed her eyes and groaned. And then:

"He's made his choice, now he just has to live with it!" she stated with a shrug. "But you know, I have a theory: I'm sure my sister-in-law felt threatened by his intelligence. Oh, don't get me wrong, she's bright too, there's no doubt about that! Otherwise she wouldn't have joined the Stargate programme. But she's only a part-time scientist, the other half of her time she's busy being some GI-Jane for the Air Force, so it slowed her scientific accomplishment of course. Too much time spent in the field, you see, while Meredith used to be a full-time researcher, of course... I'm sure this Samantha laded him with that kid because she knew he was a better scientist than she was and she wanted him out of the game."

" _SAMANTHA_?!" Rodney shouted.

"You don't mean... 'Sam Carter'... do you?" Sheppard asked Jeannie. "As in 'Lieutenant-Colonel Samantha Carter'?"

Jeannie looked at both of them.

"I gather she's also in the military in your reality?" she asked. "As to what her rank is, I didn't pay attention. Am not much into these military things, in fact. Oh, she's good, eh, don't get me wrong... brought interesting contribution to the Stargate programme, although not as essential as mine of course, but... I can't help thinking she was a bit jealous of Meredith, and of me too obviously."

"And what?" Zelenka asked. "She married the guy because she feared he would overshadow her? Doesn't make any sense, McKay!"

"Aye, don't talk nonsense, Jeannie..."

"But the first time they met," she retorted, "they argued all along and she ended up calling him a jerk... and less than six months later they're dating? Come on, how about _that_ kind of nonsense?"

"Hey!" Rodney indignantly protested, "couldn't she simply have fallen for the guy's charm?" he reproachfully and rhetorically asked Jeannie.

"Aye," Beckett agreed, "why do you always have to assume the worst of everyone?"

"Best way to avoid being disappointed, Carson," she answered. "And that way I'm sometimes even pleasantly surprised! Although rarely so, I must say..."

"Oh please, McKay..." Ford told her, "fighting like cats and dogs, sniping at each other and bickering is the way some people react to the attraction they're feeling, that's well-known antics! As old as the world..."

"Aye, self-preservation knee-jerk reaction, to fight the attraction," Beckett analysed with a chuckle. "Not unheard of, Jeannie! Does not mean your brother and your sister-in-law aren't sincerely in love!"

"Ow, Carson, you're being disgustingly mushy," Jeannie told him with the face of someone who's sucking a lemon – except Rodney, who always avoided lemon like the plague!

At this point of the conversation they were interrupted by the sound of another louder one going on in the corridor and approaching the infirmary:

"For God's sake," a female voice with a slight accent rolling the r's grumbled, "when will you all get through your thick skull that I am a linguist, and not a bloody interpreter!"

Oh, this version of Eleni Tsavidou apparently had as charming a personality as theirs, Ronon sarcastically inwardly reflected! He exchanged a knowing glance with Sheppard, who obviously shared his view on their own resident linguist. The woman was generally annoying to the point of nuisance, and she hardly had any friend in Atlantis, except for a nurse she apparently befriended aboard the Daedalus during the three-week long journey from Earth. Weird, considering that this nurse, a hefty African guy built like a tank, was kind and caring and... _normal_. Strange how he got along with such an abrasive personality as hers!

But after all, Beckett befriended McKay long ago in their universe as well as in this alternate one, so why not? Yet, Ronon thought, even kind and gentle Carson Beckett wasn't getting along with Tsavidou, in fact you could even say that those two were at loggerheads. A feeling exacerbated by the girl's frequently dropping by the infirmary, considering that her only friend was working there, and under doctor Beckett.

"Oh but come on..." another female voice pleaded from the corridor, "what trouble would that be to you? Would be the matter of half-an hour, one hour at most, I'm a fast learner!"

"That's no and that's flat," Tsavidou retorted as the two women appeared in the doorway. "It might not be obvious to you, but an international oversight committee didn't appoint me to another galaxy light-years away from Earth with a probably one-way ticket just so that you could hit on some Russian sergeant in his mother tongue, chatting him up with some pathetic pick-up lines!"

The other woman stopped dead when she looked inside the infirmary and saw that right there stood such a large audience, and Sheppard, Teyla and Rodney all gaped as they recognised her and realised that in this universe, doctor Dumais was still alive.

The linguist, as for her, brushed past them and walked straight to a beefy black-skinned nurse:

"Hi, Atema," she casually greeted him as he was stacking a shelf with various medical items.

"Kalispera, Eleni," he replied. "I'm almost done, I'll join you in the mess hall."

"Oh, I can wait here, I have time. I'm done with was I was doing."

Sheppard shared a look with Teyla: so these two were friends in this reality too?

"Then why don't you spend this time teaching doctor Dumais a few Russian sentences?" Atema asked her.

"Because I'm not here for that, and I'm fed up with everyone mistaking me for a mere machine translator at their beck and call, that's why."

"And because you suck at chatting up, perhaps?" he added with an amused smile transpiring through his voice.

"Oh, yeah, that too..." she answered with a chuckle as she hauled herself on a nearby bed.

"Hey, get back on your feet and haul your backside off this mattress," Beckett chided her. "The bed's just been made, and it's not a chair!"

She rolled her eyes and let out a heavy sigh, but complied.

"Honestly!" she growled, "the way you react, you'd think it's your own bed I was on!"

"Not a chance of this ever happening, Tsavidou."

"At least we totally agree on that, Beckett."

No lost love between them, Teyla thought. A common pattern between both universes, apparently.

Atema sighed, looking both awkward and resigned: yes, having your friend and your boss at each other's throat certainly was a very uncomfortable situation, between a rock and a hard place. Between two people he liked and esteemed.

Sheppard too had always wondered why those two were friends: Atema, the caring and sociable nurse, and Eleni, the solitary and rather prickly bookworm. The nice guy and the gruff linguist. Surprising how well they got along...

But after all, he and Rodney had become close friends, and Rodney McKay hardly was the most gracious person he knew, for sure! Nor was his sister's counterpart in the alternate reality they landed in, come to think of that... and yet this Jeannie befriended this Carson too, so all in all there was probably no telling why two people turned pals or not.

Doctor Beckett came back to his four new patients and told Radek, Bates, Jeannie, Ford, and basically every other people around them:

"At least I can already tell you that they are not replicators."

"Oh, _thank you_ doctor!" Sheppard dryly deadpanned.

"The vitals are normal," Carson went on, ignoring the interruption, "although very slightly off-average for this one," he added as he gestured at Rodney, "but nothing worrisome."

"I suffer from chronic hypoglycaemia!" he said. "And from hypertension too."

"Not to mention hypochondria," Sheppard teased him.

"Ha ha ha, thank you so much for your compassion, John."

"Could we please go back to the matter at hand now," Jeannie cut in visibly annoyed, "which is, building a temporary dimensional bridge to send these people back to where they belong? Radek, we should get out of this infirmary and head to the lab," she added. "And uh... _Meredith_? I take it _you_ remained in the game, right? Then join us there when Carson clears you and kicks you out of his infirmary."

"Uh... actually, I rather go by Rodney, if you don't mind..."

"Oh no, I can't believe it! Haven't you finally grown out of it?" Jeannie asked. "Meredith was just like you throughout high school, even trying to get his schoolmates to call him 'Rod'... Fortunately he got over it when he started university. Honestly," she sighed looking at Rodney, "what's so wrong with 'Meredith', eh?"

Rodney let out a huge sigh.

"Do I really have to labour the point, here?" he asked. "And here we are again, I can't believe I am having this conversation again, and with a different Jeannie at that!" he added for himself under his breath. "Okay, let's state it again: I got landed with a girl's name, for God's sake, a _girl_ 's name! Mum and dad must have resented me for something, I can't see any other reason!"

Jeannie rolled her eyes.

"That's a perfectly normal and lovely name," she retorted.

"For a girl, yes!" he squealed.

"If I may," Tsavidou interrupted from where she was standing, still waiting for her friend Atema, "as a matter of fact, _Meredith_ is a name for both genders, although it was initially a boy's name only, of Welsh orig–"

"Who asked you?" Rodney spat at her.

"But it's just–"

"So what?" Jeannie asked Rodney with a wave of dismissal aimed at the linguist. "You've been granted a nice name, would you have preferred to be some mere 'John' among zillions of others?"

"Hey!" Sheppard protested, " _I_ 'm a 'John', as it happens!"

Jeannie raised an eyebrow.

"Hmph! Just what I was saying..." she rather disparagingly murmured.

"Whatever," Rodney told her, "you can't know what is, you've not been given a name that's mostly a boy's name! Do you know how mocking children are at school? No, of course, how could you, everybody always called you 'Jeannie' I guess, like my own sister! Oh, and come to think of that, why did you choose to go by 'Jeannie', eh? Didn't 'Jean' sound girlie enough to your liking?" He turned to the others, his own friends as well as the rest of Jeannie's friends in this Atlantis: "That's her real name, did even she tell you?"

"So what?" Ford asked as he turned to her, "that's a perfectly normal girl's name!"

"Don't ask me," Zelenka said, "I'm Czech, to me all your firstnames sound weird, _Aiden_..."

"Yeah, 'Jean' sounds alright," Sheppard said, apparently unresentful of her earlier comment about 'zillions of Johns'. "Regular girl's name, I guess."

"Really?" Rodney retorted. "Unless you're French, with 'Jean' being exclusively a boy's name, there. _Your_ name in fact, _John_."

"But who cares about the French, Rodney?" he asked him.

"Oh yeah," Tsavidou chipped in again, "that's not like _they,_ " – she gestured at Rodney and Jeannie, pointing at the flag on the woman's shoulder – "are from a bilingual country where one of the two official languages happens to be French, is it?"

"Could you please mind your own business?" Rodney asked her, irritated.

"But I was saying something which agreed with your point!"

"Well I'm a big boy, I'm old enough to make my own point myself, thank you very much," he retorted.

"And by the way, what are you still doing in my infirmary?" Beckett asked Tsavidou. "Atema will join you in the mess hall when he's all done, as he promised, so if you are not ill and are not visiting one of my patients, then by all means please don't crowd the place, there's already too many people around here!"

"Okay Carson," Jeannie said from behind him, "got the hint, we won't grace your infirmary with our presence any longer tonight either. Radek, let's head to the lab. Meredith, join us there when you're done here."

"That's 'Rodney', Jean!" he shouted at her retreating back.


	5. Chapter 5

They had not exactly been put in cell, thank God, but they hadn't been accommodated like welcomed guests either. The four of them had been assigned the same guest quarters and had therefore to cram into these, being provided with additional mattresses to put on the ground to sleep onto. And no less than three soldiers were guarding their door: never too cautious, Lieutenant Ford had told Zelenka.

"Couldn't we at least give the lass her own quarters?" Beckett had argued, hinting at Teyla's likely wish for privacy as opposed to having to share sleeping and bathing accommodations with her three male teammates.

But no, McKay – _Jeannie_ McKay – refused, as well as Sergeant Bates. They didn't explain Carson why, at least not in their guests' presence, but Sheppard supposed it was to avoid having to assign two more soldiers to her door too. He had noticed how uncrowded this Atlantis seemed to be, and remembered that they had never gotten back in touch with Earth: they never received the reinforcement their own dimension's Atlantis had gotten from Earth the past two years or so, whereas they probably lost people to the Wraiths, to the Genii and to any other peril this galaxy held. The remaining military contingent was put to better use elsewhere, if possible.

Once inside, Rodney had immediately claimed he needed the bed more than any of his teammates did, because of his aching back – "if I don't sleep on a real bed, preferably on a good mattress and bed base, I wake up sore all over in the morning; back in our Atlantis, I even have a prescription mattress for that precise reason!"

But both Sheppard and Ronon chivalrously suggested that Teyla should rather have the bed, a thought that didn't even occur to McKay's mind before they voiced it, and that the three of them would sleep on the mattresses directly on the ground. Teyla, who on the one hand appreciated the gesture, but on the other hand and above all abhorred being paternalised and treated as a fragile being, told them that really, she didn't need the bed any more that any of them; so in the end Sheppard let Rodney have the bed just because truth be told, none of them wanted to endure a cranky McKay the morning after.

* * *

"No no no no, the matter transfer doesn't stand a chance of correctly occurring if the transdimensional bridge isn't stably established beforehand!"

"Way to state the obvious, Meredith, but that's what the containment chamber might help achieve! By keeping the transdimensional perturbation confined, we can better monitor it and make sure it's stable enough before risking a human life–"

"That's rubbish, Jeannie! The containment chamber will indeed help monitor and, well, _contain_ the phenomenon, eh, but there's no way it'd help _stabilising_ the whole thing!"

"Not to mention the fact that if human beings later enter it," Zelenka cut in, "their bodies will be severely damaged by the energy, probably even entirely destroyed! And therefore... well... killed."

"Well," Sheppard said from behind the group of scientists, "that last part sucks! I don't understand one third of what you guys said, but I got Radek's last two sentences and I it's not a pretty thought!"

They were all either standing or sitting in a room packed with computers, desks, monitors, and all sorts of consoles. 'They' being Sheppard's team, the three soldiers guarding them closely and a bunch of scientists working on their current predicament: Atlantis's department of Astrophysics, apparently. At first Rodney's heart had skipped a beat when he entered and saw doctor Gaul's face in the lab. He had stared at him and remained rather awkward, remembering he had seen a man with this same face die in front of him, shooting himself so that he and Sheppard stood a chance to live. McKay had never really gotten over that, merely buried this memory deep down in his mind. And now this guy's face brought it to the forefront of it.

Ever since they set foot in this other Atlantis, he and his teammates had been confronted with the living counterparts of some of the people they lost and sometimes buried long ago. Like Ford, for instance. Or doctor Dumais. Or doctor Grodin. Or doctor Gaul.

"Your Zelenka is right," Rodney told Jeannie, "believe me, been there, done that: your idea won't work! And the only guy I know who's gotten through such a bridge survived it thanks to an Ancient personal forcefield he used for protection. But we can't have that here because even if you found several of these personal shield in your Atlantis, Teyla and Ronon can't use these: they don't have the Ancient gene."

"Yes! We're not going to leave any of our teammates behind," Sheppard stated.

"And even if we could come up with a forcefield for the four of us," Rodney went on, "you'd be creating exotic particles either on your side of the bridge or on ours, possibly both."

"Which... would... create a tear–" Jeannie started to say.

"–in the fabric of the universe, yes," Ronon surprisingly provided, to his three teammates utter astonishment. "What? I remember what Rodney and his sister said at the time, why are you looking so stunned?" He shrugged. "Does not mean I understood anything else of it beside that, and beside that it sucked, mind you..."

"Oh, so there's the beginnings of a brain somewhere within this heap of muscles, it seems..." Jeannie commented.

Ronon obviously didn't take it very well, and he slowly marched on her, invading her personal space and towering her with all his height, looking less than amiable. Jeannie briefly tried to stand her ground but failed at it, and she cowered a bit under Ronon's glare.

"Alright, playtime's over, kiddies," Sheppard told them.

"Yeah," Rodney added, "how 'bout getting back to the matter at hand, Jeannie? Ronon, please, don't tear her to shreds until we're ready to go back home... As much as I hate to acknowledge it, she might be of some assistance."

Ronon reluctantly took a step back, but his features didn't really ease into a more affable look. Jeannie relaxed a bit, though.

"Please, sir," Radek told Ronon, "as weird as it may sound to you, that's more or less Doctor McKay's way of making a compliment, albeit a rather backhanded one. Believe it or not, she's almost at her maximum praising capacity, here."

Ronon finally relaxed and looked at his own 'doctor McKay'.

"Sadly," he finally let out in a drawling voice, "I believe you," he said not taking his eyes from Rodney.

Sheppard and Teyla shared a look as Rodney frowned at their teammate.

"Ha ha ha, so funny, He-Man!" he told Ronon. "Now, can we rather focus on finding our way home, please?"

"But why don't you simply use here the same solution you finally came up with to send Rod back to his universe, at the time?" Ronon ingenuously asked.

"Because," Rodney said with an obvious effort not to raise his voice out of irritation, just like a grown-up trying to explain something simple to a child who's not getting any of it, "if you remember well, it not only involved Ancient personal forcefields, but also the Daedalus beaming Rod into the energy stream _and_ the total depletion of a previously almost full ZPM. Should I remind you they don't have any ZPM here, and no Daedalus yo-yoing between the Milky Way and the Pegasus Galaxy?"

"So we're stuck here?" Ronon summarised.

"For the time being. But hey, I'm doctor Rodney McKay! I'm not going to throw in the towel at the first slight difficulty, and I'll find a way around it. Just... give me some time to explore other options, okay? With my brains and their assistance," he said pointing at Jeannie and Zelenka, "I'll come up with something. In the mean time, why don't you go and beat up a few poor Marines in the gym, for training?"

Zelenka chuckled.

"Family resemblance is quite something, uh?" he mused, teasing dripping from his voice as he pointedly looked at his own doctor McKay.

"Sarcasm won't get us anywhere, Radek," she snapped. Then she turned to Ronon, Teyla, Sheppard, and the military escort guarding them permanently. "But Mered– _Rodney_ has a point: what are you all still doing in my lab?"

" _Our_ lab," Zelenka corrected.

But she waved dismissively and went on:

"Overcrowded here, don't you think? Why not follow Mer– _Rodney's_ suggestion and go loosen up in the gym or do whatever else would have you all out of my hair? My genius needs uninterrupted time to work its brilliance to the fullest."

"How so McKayish of you!" John drily replied.

But Rodney didn't have time to retort to the jibe because doctor Beckett barged in, holding a tablet in his hand.

"Ah, here you are, all of you," he said.

"Oh, just when I was thinking there were already too many people in here!" Jeannie lamented.

"Now, how gifted you are at making people feel welcome, Jeannie..." Beckett deadpanned.

"Ow, sorry..." she sarcastically retorted, not sounding sorry in the least, "let's do it your way, then," she added, before she went on in a falsely enthusiastic tone of voice: "The more the merrier, please by all mean come in and cram yourself into this lab with the rest of us all!"

"Aren't you absolutely charming, this morning," Beckett's dry wit made him say. "Seems like someone didn't get enough sleep last night. You should try these indigenous herbs the botanists brought back from the mainland, our chemists found it contains the same active principal as camomi–"

"Did you have a point coming here, Carson, or did you simply feel a compelling need to rag on me?"

"Why couldn't I combine business with pleasure? But I didn't come all the way from the infirmary to here just for the pleasure of your wonderfully pleasant conversation and accommodating mood, Jeannie. I have the results of yesterday's tests on them," he told everyone around, referring to their four unexpected guests. "This one's DNA," he said as he gestured at Rodney, "shows a close correspondence with doctor McKay's, the same degree of likeness as between siblings, in fact."

Jeannie and Rodney looked at each other, pointedly ignoring Radek's comment that it had earlier become obvious to everyone around there.

"Right," she said after this announcement, "well, I could have told so without your voodoo crystal ball, Carson: after all I can still recognise my brother's face, even after five years!"

Beckett simply shrugged and went on:

"This one's DNA," he said pointing at John, "is the exact same as Major Sheppard's; I had to check the archives in the database to retrieve it," he added pointing at his tablet, "but I found it, and it matches perfectly. Including the Ancient gene of course."

Again, all the local Atlantians in the room looked at John in silence, with something in their eyes that made Sheppard feel as though he was attending his own funeral service. A highly unpleasant feeling.

"These two," Carson went on, "are human too, but... some of their genes are only rarely met in the rest of us."

"What do you mean, doc?" one of the guards asked.

"Well, I mean 'us' as in 'almost all the populations of the several and various ethnical groups we know'. Not only on Earth, but also on the other planets the Goa'ulds brought human populations too."

"Did you say 'almost', Carson?" Kavanagh asked.

"Yes. Back on Earth too, there are groups of populations with a gene pool rarely seen in other people: it's generally due to the fact that the place where their ancestors settled were rather secluded, geographically speaking: remote islands, regions surrounded by high mountain chains, things like that. These groups ended up being rather isolated, so their genes weren't transmitted outside the area because there was not much interaction with other groups of population."

"Thank you for the lecture in anthropology, doc," Sheppard said, "but what does it have to do with Teyla and Ronon?"

"Well, you said they're indigenous to this galaxy and not from ours, right?"

Teyla nodded.

"When the ancients from Atlantis left Earth," Beckett answered, "leaving people back there whose descendants became... well... _us_ , they brought their gene pool in the Pegasus Galaxy and obviously their descendants here didn't scatter according to the same pattern as on Earth, so my theory is that the people with what would be deemed 'rare' genes in the Milky Way settled in places far less secluded than their 'cousins' on Earth, so they mingled with others and their gene pool mixed much more broadly."

"So basically," Teyla tried to translate, "we are all humans, but the people from your galaxy have more genes in common than with us, and we Pegasians have more genes in common between ourselves than we have with you?"

"Like... Teyla and I are some sort of first cousins" Ronon told Beckett, "whereas you and I are much more distant relatives?"

"That's it exactly!" Carson confirmed.

"So there's definitely some brain cells under this hairy octopus topping his head..." Jeannie McKay appreciatively acknowledged, earning another dirty look from Ronon.

"So uh... if they really told us the truth... I guess it means we don't need to have them so closely guarded anymore, do we...?" Kavanagh suggested.

But before anyone else could nod their agreement, Beckett's rather hesitant voice reluctantly said:

"Huh... mmmh... I'm... not sure. Not about the woman, I...uh... mean..."

Everyone frowned, and John started having an idea as to what was bothering Beckett about Teyla.

"You see..." Carson went on, "I'm beginning to be a bit more familiar with the Wraith genome after working on it for almost three years, and..."

"...and you identified a very small fraction of Wraith DNA in Teyla's, that's what you mean, right?" Sheppard finished for him.

Upon hearing these words the three guards suddenly pointed their weapons at Teyla, while all the other Atlantians looked at her very warily


	6. Chapter 6

"What do you mean, doctor Beckett...?" Miko Kusanagi asked in a shocked murmur, staring warily at Teyla. "She... is a Wraith?"

"NO!" Rodney quickly said, "No no no no no, she's NOT a Wraith."

"No she isn't," Ronon growled, looking all dangerous.

"You said it yourself, Carson," Rodney told Beckett, "she's human!"

"Aye, but still, I was able to identify sequences which are purely Wraith in her DNA."

"How is it possible?" Zelenka said. "And how can we trust her, then? How could we trust _you_?" he asked her three companions.

"Doctor Beckett," Teyla calmly explained, "our Carson Beckett did this same discovery two years ago, and together we understood some things about my lineage. Please don't be afraid, there is nothing to fear, I swear."

But the soldiers didn't lower their guns and were still pointing these at her. Teyla sighed.

"Oh, no..." Rodney lamented, "we're not going through this madness again, are we?"

"Tell them, Teyla," Sheppard advised her.

She took a deep breath in, and told doctor Beckett:

"Centuries ago, the Wraith tampered with some of their human captives' DNA, running some sort of scientific experiments on them. Perhaps to make them even more compatible with the Wraith's need for feeding, we don't really know... Anyway, some of these test subjects survived and were freed – or perhaps they managed to escape? – and returned to... huh... living their life, I guess. And they had children, who in turn had children, and so on. That's how some people in this galaxy have a very minor part of wraith DNA, although it's apparently a very rare occurrence. And apart from allowing me to sometime sense the Wraith when they are getting closer, which proved useful more than once, it doesn't have any other consequence."

"You mean you have some sort of built-in Wraith sensor?" Jeannie asked.

"That's a way to put it, yes," Rodney answered her question. "Not to mention the sort of telepathic spying bug. Has proven pretty useful, sometimes."

"Perhaps, but I suggest that two guards remain with her permanently, just to be on the safe side," Jeannie said.

"Oh come on!" Rodney whined, "you have to be kidding me!"

"And here we are again..." Sheppard sighed.

"That's quite alright," Teyla softly said, "I understand. As long as my companions are free to come and go, I will comply for the days to come."

"And if it takes longer than a few days to send us back?" Ronon asked.

"Oh, thank you for the vote of confidence, Ronon," Rodney drily told his teammate.

"It's not your decision to make, anyway," Zelenka reminded their guests.

"Let's put it to the vote, then," doctor Kavanagh suggested.

"Right," doctor Gaul said. "Who thinks the four of them must remain under close escort? Who thinks she is the only one we need to guard? Who thinks we can let the four of them come and go freely in the city?"

It turned out that among the few people there, a quarter trusted their new guests entirely, another quarter wanted to keep the guard as it currently was, and the remaining half thought that Teyla was a potential hazard to them but that her three companions could be let free.

As Sheppard protested against their suspicion of her, doctor Kusanagi wisely pointed out that at least that way each of them would have their own guest quarters for the duration of their stay.

"Right," Beckett said, "always see the silver lining; thank you Miko, you're our ray of sunshine here, lass."

Doctor Kusanagi turned bright red, and then she hid her embarrassment by looking down and pretending finding the equations on her tablet absolutely fascinating.

"Okay, well, now could you all non-scientists get the hell out of my lab?" Jeannie growled.

" _Our_ lab, McKay!"

"If you want, Radek, if it can make you happy..."

"Oh, don't condescend me, Jeannie..."

"Kids!" Sheppard told them, "be nice... And get us back home as soon as possible, please!"

"I think the best base to start on is to understand precisely how you ended here in the first place," Jeannie said. "Retrace the whole sequence of physical phenomenons and of equations that first opened a bridge from your reality to ours, and then let you cross it and emerge unscathed out of this."

"Yes," Zelenka agreed, "and also how it turned out that our Stargate's shield didn't work although your ID-Code was not valid. We tried to raise it manually, but it didn't work either."

"WHAT!" Rodney suddenly realised with a shudder of retrospective horror what it was implying for them, "you tried to raise the shield on us?!"

"Of course we did," Radek said, "we didn't get any valid code!"

"Just like it happened each time a member of our expedition died or went MIA, Sheppard's code was invalidated of course. Long ago," doctor Gaul explained. "Weir's orders."

"But it means... it means... we could have _died_?!" Rodney disbelievingly realised. "Squashed against your shield!?"

"Well, get over it, McKay," Ronon gruffly told him, "we're alive, so everything's okay."

"No everything is NOT okay: we're stuck in another universe, have you already forgotten?"

"Calm down, Rodney," John drawled, "we know we had a close brush with death, once more, but just like your sister said, let's rather try to understand–"

"Eh... technically, I'm _not_ his sister, remember? _My_ brother is somewhere on Earth, okay?"

"Right," Rodney said, pulling a face at the thought of his alter ego stranded in the life of a stay-at-home parent not doing any astrophysics anymore. "And... eh... Jeannie, aren't you curious about your counterpart in our reality? About _my_ sister, I mean..."

She shrugged.

"Not particularly. Whatever the universe, I'm certain each and every Jeannie McKay is a genius anyway," she stated.

Beckett rolled his eyes and bit back a chuckle while Zelenka let out a huge sigh, clearly fed up with her colossal pretentiousness.

"Could we please not drift away from the matter at hand?" he reminded them.

"Okay, okay Radek. The shield. Why didn't it raise?"

"As a matter of fact," Teyla said, "I remember wondering how we could be sure our ID-Code would reach Atlantis when we were still on this planet... because of the electromagnetic interferences, I mean. Even the radio had trouble, there!"

"Oh, that?" Rodney said. "It's easy in fact: I had earlier told John to have his transmitter in direct physical contact with the metal of the Stargate, touching it when he dialled his ID-Code, that way the radio wave wouldn't have to get through several feet of electromagnetic disturbance but would be directly transferred from the transmitter to the Gate, from the Gate to the wormhole, and from the wormhole to Atlantis," he explained, rather pleased with himself. "Just... _our_ Atlantis, I meant," he added a bit deflated, "not..."

He waved at their surroundings to better express that _this_ was not the Atlantis he expected to find on their return.

"But... the lightning which struck the forming wormhole interfered with the expected route the wormhole was supposed to take," Radek said as and when the thoughts were forming in his mind, "creating a bridge with our universe, and... the electric discharge too was transmitted through this wormhole and through this bridge to our Stargate here, therefore preventing the shield from raising as it should have! That's probably what happened."

"Hmmm... yeah, probably..." Rodney repeated after him, his mind still stuck on the 'as it should have' part of Zelenka's sentence as he mentally pictured himself – or rather the remolecularising matter of his body – squashing against the forcefield shield just like a gnat on the windscreen of a car speeding along the highway.

He winced.

"I can't believe none of you three thought even one second about telling me the Stargate had been struck by such an enormous electrical discharge of energy as _lightning!"_ Rodney told his teammates. "Seriously? Didn't it occur to any of you that _this_ could have consequences on the concomitantly establishing wormhole?"

"I can't believe it..." Jeannie McKay murmured, appalled. "It's obvious that such a phenomenon is likely to interfere with the expected functioning of the gate and of the wormhole!" she barked at Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla. "And yet you... what? Jumped in feet first into the unknown, eh? A fat lot of good that's done you!"

"Yeah," Rodney concurred, "look where that's got us! A fine job you three did..."

"Hey! Had you not been hiding under the DHD, you'd have seen it like the rest of us, okay?" Sheppard snapped at him. "So stop yelling at us, Mister I'm-taking-cover-while-my-team-is-perhaps-being-electrocuted!"

"Oh, that's rich!" Rodney retorted indignantly. "So that's supposed to be _my_ fault _you_ didn't report to the scientific authority of the group an obvious technical trouble?"

"And who's fault is that supposed to be that you are afraid of thunderstorms, McKay?" Ronon retorted.

"I'm not afraid of thunderstorms!"

"Meredith is," Jeannie piped in.

"We're not asking _you_ ," Rodney snapped at her. "Who cares about your brother? He's in another galaxy!"

"STOP THAT!" doctor Grodin yelled at them all. "Stop it before we knock your heads together, for pity's sake!"

"Peter is right," doctor Kavanagh said, "bickering won't lead us anywhere."

"I agree," doctor Dumais concurred, "God knows we're having enough of this here about our own situation since Elisabeth and Marshall died. It's not going to help the four of you get back to your own reality either."

With some surprise, Sheppard noted that apparently some of them here referred to Colonel Sumner by his first name, and he hadn't expected that: he pictured the Marshall Sumner he briefly knew as a stickler for rules and not exactly the kind of guy who'd act all buddy with the civilians of the Atlantis expedition, least of all the scientists. It had seemed hard enough on Colonel Sumner to be placed under doctor Weir's authority, so the idea of him being on first name terms with these eggheads he considered like kids he had to babysit felt really weird to Sheppard. But again, he remembered: other reality, other choices, other circumstances... The roads not taken and all...

Not to mention that being stuck and stranded three years with a bunch of people who had to count on each other and who had been reciprocally saving each others' lives on a regular basis, be it either through military actions or scientific and technical feats, would have necessarily strengthened the ties between them all. And indeed everyone here seemed to be grieving his death as much as doctor Weir's on a personal level. People are modelled according to the circumstances they are faced with, after all; and even a slight detail can in the end give a considerably different outcome: John simply had to look at this reality's version of Jeannie McKay and compare it to the Jeannie McKay he recently met in his own universe to be convinced of that.

And rather fittingly, his musings were interrupted by the aforementioned doctor Jeannie McKay who got up looking dangerously irritated and shouted at the crowd in front of her:

"Alright, now and for the last time, all the people who don't have a PhD in Physics, GET OUT of this room and let us work in peace!"


	7. Chapter 7

"You shouldn't stare at it like you're doing, John, I don't think it's doing you any good," Teyla softly said.

Colonel Sheppard was standing in front of a wall in the mess hall, nears the bay window, with his gaze fixed on a photograph hanged to it.

A portrait. A picture of a smooth-faced man with much shorter hair than his own, but apart from these details the features of the man on this picture were disturbingly similar to his own. His lookalike on the portrait was wearing an impeccably starched and ironed uniform, and the insignias on his shoulders were the golden oak leaves of a major. The thin frame around it was a discrete black one, and under the picture were simply and soberly written two words: _John Sheppard_.

Colonel Sheppard was looking transfixed, staring at it as though he wouldn't be able to unglue his eyes from this photograph.

"John..." Teyla insisted, lightly squeezing his elbow in with her hand.

But it didn't rouse him from his mesmerised state of mind, and he seemed to be very far away from this mess hall, very far away from his own body in fact, lost somewhere in whatever had been this other John Sheppard's life. Or more probably his death.

"JOHN!" Teyla tried again, louder this time.

It finally worked and Sheppard turned his face toward her, seemingly coming back to where his body was currently standing. He didn't talk immediately, though, still taken by whatever uncomfortable feeling had seized him in front of this photograph. Teyla understood and gave him a few more seconds to fully come back to them.

"This is weird," Sheppard finally simply murmured.

She slowly nodded, closely flanked by two marines guarding her.

"Having two almost identical McKays in our Atlantis was weird too," Ronon agreed, "but at least they both were alive."

"Yes, I suppose _this_ ," Teyla added referring to the portrait on the wall, "feels entirely different."

"To say the least..." Sheppard mumbled.

"Doctor Weir's idea..." one of Teyla's two guards let out, surprising them all. "Sometimes we don't have any body to bury, or we can't bring it back here, and even when we do there's no graveyard on Atlantis anyway, so we bury our people over there on the mainland."

He paused and his colleague went on:

"She didn't want some sad and too solemn Memorial Wall – her words, not mine – so she decided that when one of our people dies, we hang a portrait of him or her somewhere in the city, where everyone comes and goes in everyday life, or in a place they worked in."

 _Oh_ , Teyla thought: that explained why she saw two portraits hung in doctors McKay and Zelenka's lab earlier in the day.

"Yes," the other marine echoed in a low voice as he was obviously addressing his teammate, "and now we have to hang _her_ portrait in her office..."

The grief was obvious in his voice, and not for the first time Teyla thought that you could be a tough-looking no-nonsense warrior and yet have very human internal sorrows gnawing at your heart.

"Why isn't your Sheppard's military rank written before his name?" Ronon asked them.

"Weir's choice, again: she said that once we're dead there's no rank anymore, no orders given or taken, and no pre-eminence either."

"After all she was a civilian, remember..." the other one added.

"Come, let's have lunch before there isn't anything left," Ronon prosaically told his two teammates.

Teyla and John followed him in silence, with Teyla's two guards in tow, and on their way they passed by another portrait: a thirty-something brown-haired military woman. Under her picture Sheppard briefly saw three words in Cyrillic which he was absolutely unable to decipher – _Ксения Фёдоровна Бородина_ – and below these were also three others he was able to read: _Ksenia Fiodorovna Borodina._ Another Atlantian lost to the Pegasus Galaxy, certainly.

* * *

The three of them were eating quietly, feeling the rather oppressing presence of Teyla's two 'guardian angels' standing by their table like statues. Sheppard had purposefully sat with his back to his twin's portrait in an attempt to get it out of his mind, Teyla was absent-mindedly chewing on a mouthful of tava beans, an Ronon was looking at her with a frown.

"You're awfully silent," he commented.

It tore her away from whatever her thoughts had brought her mind to.

"I was wondering..." she replied, "... where are we?"

Ronon, Sheppard and the two marines looked at her clearly surprised.

"In the mess hall," Ronon provided matter-of-factly. "Eating lunch. Are you... feeling alright?"

She shook her head.

"No", she said, "no, I meant... the Teyla Emmagan and the Ronon Dex of this reality... where are they?"

"Oh, that!" Ronon said, sounding relieved. "I wondered about that too yesterday, when we arrived here. I s'pose they never joined these Atlantians, never even met them."

"If they exist at all..." Sheppard said.

"What d'you mean?"

"Well... _Madison_ ," John simply said by way of explanation.

Both Teyla and Ronon frowned, clearly at a loss as to how it explained anything. Sheppard saw the look on their faces and elaborated:

"Rodney's niece doesn't even exist in this reality, obviously. With Jeannie having left for Antarctica and then Atlantis, and probably never even hooked up with Miller..."

Teyla's eyebrows rose in understanding.

"Whereas Rod's sister from the other alternative universe had not only a daughter, but two other sons!" John went on. "And likewise, the child McKay and Carter made together in this reality we just barged in, doesn't exist in ours... and never will!"

Ronon slowly nodded.

"I see..." he said. "I see what you meant: perhaps here, my parents never even met?"

"Or perhaps they did..." Teyla added, "but your alter ego simply never crossed path with the Atlantians... Maybe he even never became a runner!"

"Perhaps the Wraiths simply never attacked Sateda," Ronon said, sounding hopeful.

"Or perhaps they killed him," Sheppard said before he could stop himself. "Sorry," he added when he saw Ronon's face, "I shouldn't have... I mean... Maybe he's simply currently living there a nice life with a nice lady..."

 _Melena_... Ronon thought. Perhaps she was still alive in this universe. If she existed at all, that is...

"When they checked on us in the infirmary yesterday," Teyla softly said, "Atema told me they never heard of Athos. I wonder what becomes of the Athosians in this universe... If this reality's Tagan and Torren exist and are still alive..."

"And if they had a daughter named Teyla?" Sheppard asked.

* * *

"I told you there's no more stew!" the military cook told a civilian technician somewhere behind them.

"I'm sure there's some left, but you're saving it for your buddies!"

"No I'm not. There is nothing left! It's already a miracle I managed to prepare enough meals for all of us, with the restrictions and the low stocks. You should on the contrary thank us for that!"

The voices were raising, and several people around got up from their seats to try to calm things down – or to take part to the quarrel, for a handful of them. The situation finally simmered down, and Teyla though that having the burly nurse Atema Nagoli putting his impressive physical presence between the arguing parties contributed to make the squabble subside. Other people reasoned with their comrades on edge, the tension in the air was appeased and the atmosphere went back to normal.

The issue was now closed and everyone went back to their own plates or whatever business they had been at before.

"I thought we had finally all gotten over the edginess and irascibility of withdrawal syndrome due to our coffeelessness!" a female voice Teyla recognised said from a few feet behind her. "But not everyone has, apparently."

Eleni Tsavidou and Atema Nagoli passed by their table.

" _Coffeelessness_ , uh?" the hefty African nurse told his friend. "You know, being a linguist should not make you feel compelled to make up new words."

"Hey, coffee deprivation is messing with my brain functions, okay? I'm direly lacking the fuel I usually run on, like almost everyone else here... This sort of chicory we trade with the Telnorrans is nothing like true real coffee! As far as food is concerned, I've never been much into any kind of ersatz, anyway."

"Hmm, I remember how cranky McKay had been for a few weeks after we totally ran out of your precious black gold months ago. And you were not far behind!" Atema teasingly added.

"Oh please, not you too Brutus! I know most people tend to think I'm worse than she is, but you at least know better... I mean, I saw a few people of the physics department in tears because of her remarks or dressings down just after we ran out of coffee! At least I work alone, when _I_ 'm moody no one has to bear the brunt of it!"

"Except perhaps your best pal?"

"Have I ever ripped into you?"

"Not that I remember, and it is still a mystery why you feel the need to do so at everyone else..."

"I don't, I just can't bear idiots who waste my time."

"There are not so many idiots on this base, Eleni, or they wouldn't have been chosen for this expedition. And doctor Beckett is certainly the exact opposite of an idiot, so why–"

"There's echo around here it seems, I remember we already had this convers–"

"And you didn't listen at the time."

"Look, I know he's your boss so you feel the need to stand up for–"

"He's not only my boss, he's a _friend_. Know this word? And he's a good man, you just don't appreciate his sense of humour when it's directed at you. You can take my jokes, why couldn't you take his?"

"Seems I'm impervious to Scottish humour, apparently."

"And Canadian, and Belgian, and Russian, and American, and German, and Cz–"

"Alright, alright," Eleni surrendered, worn down "I get it, I'm a terribly moody person who's lucky to have at least made one friend here, and you're a saint for bearing with me!"

"I'm still surprised not to see any halo around my head when I look at my reflexion in the bathroom mirror every morning. But joking aside," he said in a more serious tone of voice, "arguments like the one we just witnessed around the salad bar have been more and more frequent lately... Ever since Weir died, I mean. Weir and Sumn–"

"I know what you mean," Tsavidou cut him short. "And yes, you're right, we're all being rath..."

The rest of her sentence and of their conversation was lost as they walked too far away for the four trans-dimensional guests to hear them anymore.

"They are in quite a mess here," Sheppard commented for his friends in a low voice, "still cut off from Earth, and now with no leader at all anymore..."

Even though he tried not to talk too loud, he saw Teyla's two guards tense a bit at being reminded their predicament.

"And with no coffee left!" a very familiar voice moaned from behind John.

"Rodney!" Teyla said, "nice to see you poke your nose out of the lab!"

And sure enough, when Sheppard turned he saw their McKay standing behind him, carrying a pile of fruits and sandwiches in his arms.

"Have to take care of avoiding low blood sugar, y'know..."

"Of course..." Sheppard said in a knowing tone of voice and a slightly raised eyebrow which couldn't be lost on the others. "Here, have a seat," he added, pushing his own chair to the side to make room for their teammate.

"Thank you colonel, but I can't: I've just come here to get a refuel, you know," Rodney answered, hinting at the pile of food he was almost cradling in his arms, "to recharge my batteries... I must go back to the lab now, I wouldn't want to leave those kiddies alone for too long, they wouldn't get anywhere by themselves."

This time Sheppard's eyebrows almost reached his hairline and even Teyla couldn't totally suppress an amused facial expression at Rodney's well-known antics.

"You know, these guys have been here for three years without you, Mc Kay," John said, "and they haven't blown up the city yet: I think they are pretty good scientists themselves."

Rodney shrugged:

"Bah, indeed they are lucky they have this Jeannie, she's satisfactorily adequate," he acknowledged. "Brainy, even. But she is so arrogant! I don't think you can imagine how much!"

"Oh, I think we can imagine rather accurately," Sheppard deadpanned, looking at their two other teammates who were having a hard time keeping a poker face: Ronon lowered his gaze to his plate to hide his grin, and the corner of Teyla's lips twitched a bit.

"Have you and the other doctor McKay made any progress as to fix our current predicament?" she simply asked him.

"Some, yes."

"Oh, so when are we leaving here and going back home?" Ronon asked.

"Hey, we're geniuses, we're not God, okay? Just... be patient. For the moment we think we have the beginning of the equation translating the phenomenon which led the four of us here in the first place, but this equation still has many unknowns. Give us time and let us work."

And with these words, Rodney left them there and brought his mighty brains, his massive ego and his stack of food back to the other McKay's and Zelenka's lab.


	8. Chapter 8

"No no no, your math is wrong," Zelenka told Rodney.

"No it's not!" McKay protested, sounding as offended as a chef hearing criticism about his cooking or as a new father hearing someone say his newborn is ugly.

"Yes it is," Radek retorted. "This factor here, after lambda, where does it come from?"

"Ten to the minus nine? Eh, it's simply the conversion factor from nanometre to metre, of course!" Rodney answered matter-of-factly.

"What are you talking about?" Jeannie McKay asked him. "Why don't you use inches in your calculations?"

"Excuse me?"

* * *

"I tell you we must go there! We have to send a team to this planet!"

"What if that's too dangerous?"

"But we can't stay here in the city forever! We've come to this galaxy to explore and make discoveries, right?"

In the Gateroom, a bunch of people were discussing the appropriateness of scheduling a new mission offworld, despite their expedition's new situation.

"I agree, we must send a team."

"No! We don't know what can happen! Remember: Weir didn't think there would be any problem when she left for M4H-212, and yet..."

"Yes, we must learn more about M4L-279 before anyone goes there."

"But the only way to learn more about it is precisely to _go_ there!"

As he was passing by with Ronon, Teyla and her two marines, Sheppard couldn't help but agree with this last remark. Of course!

"Who gets to now decide if a team goes on a mission, and which team, and where to?" Teyla asked one of her two guards.

The marine's sole answer was to shrug.

"I'm afraid it's rather unclear," doctor Beckett provided in passing as he and nurse Atema Nagoli were crossing the room to a nearby corridor. Probably on their way back to the infirmary after lunch break.

"Everyone in general and no one in particular," the nurse added.

"Aye, anyone who has an idea suggests it, it seems," Carson echoed. "At least those who are not shy to do so."

"And I can tell you McKay – _our_ McKay – has a lot of ideas!" Atema said with a chuckle.

"And she's certainly not shy about voicing these aloud..." Beckett added with a knowing smile.

"Aloud... and very loudly so!" the nurse completed. "Oh, sorry doctor, I know she's a very good friend of yours..."

"Which doesn't prevent me from seeing her... quirks, don't worry," Carson assured him. "In fact that's precisely what makes me so aware of her peculiarities. And to be blunt, Atema, I think you of all people can understand what it is not to be blind to one's friends' flaws and yet learn to tolerate their peculiar personality..."

"You're walking a thin line here, doc," the nurse teasingly said as he resumed walking toward the corridor, "we already know that you and I will never agree about Eleni..."

The rest of their friendly banter was lost in the corridor when the two men disappeared there. Ronon, Teyla and Sheppard remained in the Gateroom, listening back to the discussions between people wanting to send a team on a new reconnaissance mission and the more prudent ones who were not so keen on risking a team on a still unknown planet. The group of people had grown larger by now, and both sides were explaining their respective point of view louder and more fervently than earlier:

"We cannot morally order a team to their possible death! And how would we come to terms with that if something were to happen to them?"

"That's precisely what Weir had to deal with on a daily basis, Vadim," Peter Grodin replied, "and I don't think it ever was easy on her either, but fortunately it didn't paralyse her decision-making. Because exploring was this expedition's very reason for being, and we have to go on. Not only in memory of her, but for all of us. We can't simply remain stranded here."

"Not to mention that we need to find more sources of staple goods, of bare necessities, and therefore to broaden our trading network," Eleni Tsavidou piped in.

"We're not going to risk our lives just so that you and McKay can have your share of coffee!" an airman protested.

Many voices echoed this statement. Apparently both Tsavidou and McKay's personalities were moderately appreciated here, just like they were on Sheppard's Atlantis.

"Why not let the teams decide whether they go or not?" a voice suggested as a compromise. "After all, it's their lives we're talking about! They are the ones who should most have a say in that!"

"Yes, let's explain the potential mission to all teams and see if one of them – or perhaps several – volunteers to go explore a new unknown planet!"

"Sounds wise," the Slavic engineer called Vadim agreed.

"But what if no one volunteers?" a woman's voice asked in an Italian accent.

There were now about thirty people discussing the matter – and almost arguing about it – in the Gateroom and the sound level had increased rather significantly.

"Perhaps we should knock their heads together?" Ronon suggested to Teyla and Sheppard.

"How much longer can they go on like this?" Teyla wondered aloud. "What I mean is that without doctor Weir, without anyone else to decide in her place... this Atlantis expedition is doomed to failure."

Neither Ronon nor Sheppard, or even the marines guarding Teyla, had the time to provide a reply because they spotted Rodney enter the Gateroom from the same corridor Beckett and Nagoli earlier disappeared into. He quickly reached them in a few long strides, turning his head toward the large arguing group of locals.

"What's happening here?" he asked his teammates.

"They're having a disagreement," Sheppard soberly answered.

"Oh, thank you Mister Stating-The-Obvious," McKay drily retorted, "I would have never guessed that without your enlightening help!"

"And to what do we owe the honour of you gracing us with your presence, Rodney?" Sheppard asked.

"Already the need for another refill in the mess hall?" Ronon teasingly asked.

"Ha ha ha, no. I just needed some fresh air: they were driving me crazy!"

"What, not meeting up to your expectations?" Sheppard tauntingly asked. "Let me guess: they are not measuring up to your level of genius and they're slowing you down?"

"No, that's not– well, yes indeed they are, or rather they aren't, or– but that's not..." Rodney confusingly muddled. "No, what I meant is... I needed a break because that's too frustrating: but at least now I think I know why they are in this situation here... I mean, I have part of the beginning of an explanation as to why they don't have any _Daedalus_ -like ship yet, whereas we do in our reality."

The three of them looked at him expectantly as he let out a huge sigh. But when he didn't elaborate further, contrary to his usual habit in such a situation, they had to reluctantly prompt him to do so:

"And...?" Sheppard said, sensing he would soon regret it once Rodney launches in one of his trademark long-winded and jargony mumbo-jumbo.

"They don't use the metric system," he let out, as though the consequence of it would be obvious to his teammates.

When he saw Teyla's and Ronon's blank stares, he realised he had to elaborate. Of course, neither the Athosians nor the Satedians knew what the earthling metric system was.

"Even for science they don't use the SI. Which means that for them, who are still stuck with some form of the Imperial System of Units, the numerical calculations of any kind of physical equation is... less intuitive, it takes a bit more time..."

"But can't you simply use conversion factors?" Sheppard simply suggested. "A mere multiplication or division shouldn't be a problem for such a genius as you claim to be! Especially as there are calculators integrated to any of their computers just like in ours, I s'pose..."

"Well of course I wrote a subroutine to automatically convert the data for every physical parameter and each unit they use, took me only half an hour, but that's not the point: what I mean is that it's one of these apparently small and insignificant variations in the average Joe's eye which in fact can have huge consequences and make a great difference in the end."

"Why?" John asked. "Once you know what conversion factor is to be applied, it doesn't matter!"

"In high level Physics, it does matter. Considering that our numerical system is in base ten," he explained spreading his ten fingers in front of Sheppard's eyes to illustrate his point, "it is only logical to have a system of units in base ten alike. It helps simplify the already complex equations and numerical applications which rule the laws of Nature. Hence the technological advance our reality has over theirs."

"Does it really make such a difference?" Teyla asked.

"Oh yes, it does," Rodney peremptorily answered. "On Earth, the technological progress made giant leaps forward over the past two centuries since the metric system was created and applied, compared to the rather slow evolution made over the previous forty centuries or so. Partly thanks to the general use of the International System of Units, among other things. Unless you really want a detailed scientific and mathematical demonstration of this, you'll have to take my word about it."

"Oh, we believe you," Ronon hastily said, not really eager to endure another of Rodney's learned and fast-babbling science lecture. "So this metric-thing is the reason why they are still stranded here?"

"One of the reasons, yes, I think so."

"And does it mean we too are going to remain stranded here, in this alternate dimension?" Teyla asked, sounding slightly worried. "Or are you and the physicists of this reality going to be able to find a solution to send us back to where we belong? Despite the impediment of having to work with a less convenient unit system, I mean."

"Come on," Sheppard reassuringly said, "it cannot make such a big difference! I mean, they're not exactly stuck in the nineteenth century either, they seem to be just as advanced as we are!"

"And yet we have built intergalactic spaceships whereas they still haven't..." McKay commented as he gestured toward their still loudly arguing hosts at the opposite side of the Gateroom. "Did I say they had still a nineteenth century level of technology? No, but they have a ten years lag on us, give or take," Rodney added, turning to their hosts still arguing a few feet away from them. Or rather a few _metres_ away?

"No, no, no, no, no!" a voice shouted from within the group of locals. "With you militaries that's always the same: rushing headlong, charging in like bulls. Shooting first and thinking afterwards."

"That's rich! You civilians are too happy to have us save your sorry asses as soon as Wraiths or Geniis rear their heads anywhere in your surroundings!"

"Oh come on! It doesn't make you GI-Joes any more qualified than civilians to lead this expedition, and to take important decisions which would affect all of us here!"

"And all your PhDs in science don't make you guys qualified for leadership or management either. Or for strategy. For taking strategic or potentially political decisions."

"Oh, 'cause you think that you militaries are qualified for leading negotiations, perhaps? Like you're generally so well known for being diplomatic, aren't you?"

Again the voices raised and soon there was such brouhaha that Sheppard's team couldn't understand anything anymore. Then an ear-splitting whistling could be heard and it silenced almost everyone.

"Oh! Hey!" Tsavidou's voice shouted from within this crowd, "look at ourselves!" she exclaimed. "Or rather _listen_ to ourselves." She paused a bit. "Aren't we supposed to be bright and clever people? And more importantly, aren't we supposed to be _wise_ people? And yet we're quarrelling and fighting like cats and dogs, at each other's throat, just when we should on the contrary all use our intelligence to find a way to adapt to our new situation, and to possibly find lasting solutions..."

"What is that supposed to mean?" a corporal asked her.

"Just look at us!" she answered. "Squabbling and fighting like quarrelsome preschoolers in the playground as soon as the teachers left! We should be ashamed. At least _I_ am, on behalf of everyone here!"

"Oh? And when exactly did you become such a sanctimonious pontificator?" a female virologist told her.

"Hey! We're in a real mess here, I'm just trying to help..." she retorted, offended.

"So, aside from scolding us like toddlers, do you have any suggestion?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Tsavidou simply said.

And when she had everyone's attention around she elaborated:

"Elections."

A few blank stares looked at her, so she went on:

"Hey, we're intelligent people stuck in a microcosm. We're cut off from Earth, we can't consider ourselves like a satellite of the Milky Way anymore, we can't exactly be a colony either. Or if we were, we lost our 'governor' when Weir died. Someone has to take over the leadership in Atlantis. So either we elect a Council, a small number of people who will discuss and vote to take the decisions, or we elect a new boss. But a society can't remain beheaded like we currently are."

"No one can replace Elisabeth," Peter Grodin said.

"No you're right, no one will ever replace Weir," a military nurse said. "But Tsavidou is right: someone here will have to fill in. Until we manage to get back in touch with Earth, or vice versa."

"And we never meant Atlantis to be a dictatorship, so we will have to vote to decide of that," Eleni added.

From where he and his teammates witnessed the whole scene, Sheppard chuckled and pointed at Tsavidou's blue-and-white flag patch on her shoulder, clearly exposed to their eyes as she was standing sideways, also unintentionally displaying an aesthetically unflattering but proud Grecian nose:

"Typical..." John said with a knowing smile. "Trust the Greeks to remind everyone else about democracy..."

"And also to be wary of military juntas," Rodney pointedly reminded him.

Teyla and Ronon looked at each other, totally puzzled by their teammates' words: probably two more Tauri references to specific cultural facts Pegasians like them couldn't get...


	9. Chapter 9

"I'm telling you, Sheppard, I'm losing patience..."

"I'm not terribly fond of the waiting either, Ronon, but there is nothing I can do to speed things up," John replied. "I'm afraid it's one of these situations about which we militaries are not exactly in a position to do anything. And yes, it's eating at me too. Oh, and I'm not fond of the waiting either, but I'm afraid we're entirely dependent on McKay and the other science eggheads..."

"Or rather, on the McKay _s_ , you mean..." Teyla said, stressing the _s_.

Because yes, both this reality's Jeanie McKay and their own Rodney McKay were working – hard – on sending them home, and many of the other physicists were assisting them. Like Radek Zelenka for instance. And Ronon was strongly suspecting that these people's keenness on finding a solution to Sheppard's team's predicament had much to do with an eagerness to get rid of one Doctor Rodney McKay as soon as possible. Because, as Ronon earlier overheard at lunchtime in the mess hall, 'one McKay was already much to put up with, but two McKays are just too much for one universe, let alone for one unfortunate team of scientists stranded in a lost city.'

It had been days and days since Jeanie, Rodney, Radek and their colleagues had finally identified the equation explaining how Sheppard's team ended up in this reality, but that part had only been the tip of the iceberg: now they were working on finding a way to reverse the situation, and this was a much bigger hunk to chew than Ronon seemed to think it was: "A millionth of a tesla more or less, and the equation points to an entirely different reality than ours! Not to mention that the amount of energy required would be astronomic, and I remind you that they don't even have any ZPM here..." as Rodney pointed out to Ronon two days earlier, on one of the rare moments he wasn't stuck in Zelenka's lab or in Jeanie's small office.

In the mean time things had smoothed down a bit for them: the people here weren't that wary of them anymore and were getting used to their presence in the city, and even the constant watch Teyla was still subjected to had been reduced to only one marine. The one currently on duty was a young and rather talkative boy, good-natured and prone to take part in their conversations. Sheppard searched his mind, and thought that in their own reality this young man's counterpart was unfortunately one of the first ones to die when they set foot in the city, drowned in a flooded corridor as the shield protecting Atlantis from the pressure of water collapsed in some outer areas of the then submerged city. Too bad, the guy seemed to be nice and friendly enough – perhaps too friendly for his own good: after all, he was still supposed to guard Teyla, not to make buddy-buddy with her and her teammates! What would his immediate superiors think of this blatant case of fraternisation?

But to be true, the locals here were kept busy by another matter, an entirely unrelated one: they were designing a voting system and intensively preparing ballots. In fact, today all Atlantians were voting to choose a mode of governance: either a council made of a dozen people, with the need for an absolute majority within it for decisions to be applied, or a sole person to hold the difficult position of head of Atlantis, just like their Elizabeth Weir until her demise.

"A city council of elected representatives, a committee, like some sort of small senate or parliament, would be the best solution," the marine – _Melvin? Marvin? Martin? what was his name already?_ – said.

"Perhaps it would," Teyla prudently told him, "but considering how... hum... polarised your group of people appears to be recently, divided between the military people and the civilian scientists I mean... aren't you afraid that this council might sometimes be deadlocked, paralysed by internal dissensions?"

"With each of the two halves blocking the other half, you mean?" Ronon asked.

"That's a possibility," Sheppard added.

"Sometimes it's better to have someone wise enough to decide on his or her own..." Ronon suggested.

"Like Doctor Weir was doing, you mean?" Teyla said.

"But not everyone is that wise," Marvin-Melvin-Martin pointed out, "and it is dangerous to put too much power in one person's hands..."

"Hard to choose, uh?" a voice said behind Sheppard.

"Rodney!" Teyla greeted their friend, "we've hardly seen you in days, we had almost forgotten the sound of your voice!" she said with a kind smile aimed at him.

"Lucky you..." a voice muttered in a Slavic accent as Radek Zelenka passed by her on his way to the salad bar.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Zelenka," she greeted him too.

"Oh uh... good afternoon, miss... uh... Emayann?" he mumbled, still guarded around her and her Wraith DNA. Because yes, some people there were still ill-at-ease at the thought of having a conversation with someone they saw as a very distant descendant of their vampiric enemies. Well, coming from a probable descendant of Carpathians, this wariness around anything remotely vampire-related was perhaps the result of terrifying legends passed on from one generation to the next over centuries.

"That's _Emmagan_ , doctor," Teyla obligingly corrected.

"So, Radek," Rodney asked, "have you already made your choice for today's vote?"

"Hmm... as you said it's a difficult choice, and both solutions have their pros and cons. But at least it's always good to have a choice and be allowed to give one's opinion..."

Oh, so in this reality too Radek's country had been subjected to dictatorship, according to his last remark.

"Uh uh, _'the worst form of government, except for all the others'_..."

"Oh," Radek said, "your Aristotle said that too?"

"Aristotle?" both Rodney and John echoed, surprised.

"Oh, yes, 'slight differences', I remember..." Sheppard then murmured. "Well, this is an important decision for all of you living here," he told Radek, "and I don't envy you for having to make it."

"Well," Zelenka replied, "come to think of that, perhaps we should have included the four of you in the list of voters: after all, you're probably here for a while and maybe forever, you're going to be part of our group of stranded explorers here, so you should have your say too..."

"Oh, you're so encouraging, Radek!" Rodney ironically protested. "I'm not throwing in the towel, your Jeannie isn't either, and we'll have you keep trying too even if it means chaining you to your desk!"

"Slave driver..." Zelenka muttered, clearly depressed. "But don't think that's a pleasure to have to endure _you_ plus our McKay in the lab! We'd all go crazy before the fourth month..."

"At least, _you_ 'd have something to do here!" Ronon growled. "The rest of us," he added pointing at Sheppard and Teyla alike, "are bored stiff of not doing anything and not having any point here until you find a solution to take us home... So _we_ too are going to go crazy if we stay here too long!" he added, cracking his knuckles, for lack of using these on either the Wraiths or the Genii, probably.

Zelenka blanched a bit: he wasn't in any hurry to see a crazy Ronon Dex, it couldn't be a pretty sight!

"Which system would you vote for, if you could?" the marine asked the four members of Sheppard's team in an attempt to relieve the tension and keep their mind away from their predicament.

Teyla frowned, thinking about the question.

"Hmm... a council, I think. Despite your people's divisions. But maybe that's because I don't know you enough to be able to choose the one and only person to rule over Atlantis and make such important decisions for the lives of people here."

"Hey Malvin!" the beefy nurse Atema Nagoli told the young marine as he was walking by them all, "Beckett wants to check the healing of your scar."

"It's alright, nothing left to see but a thin white line on my knee. You did wonders with just a thread and a needle!"

"Still, he wants to have a look."

"Alright, alright, I'll report there after duty," Malvin replied, pointing at Teyla a bit tactlessly. "And after I've cast my ballot. Talking about that, did you vote?"

"Just did my civic duty, yes. Hope that most people will vote for a council, like I did..."

"That's precisely what we were discussing when you arrived," Sheppard said.

Ronon growled again.

"And if it were up to me," he told Atema, "you wouldn't be granted your wish: according to me there has to be a boss, _one_ boss who decides, like Weir... and not a group of people wasting everyone's time in endless talks about each and every matter before reaching an agreement... if ever!"

"Funny, I was sure you'd say something like that," Sheppard told Ronon.

"Yep, doesn't come as a shock to me either," Rodney said. "What's the quote already? Ah, yes, I remember: _'in order to make a decision an assembly must have an odd number of members, and three is already too many'_. Anyway, let's just hope people will remember that this is supposed to be a scientific expedition, set up for gathering knowledge, when they chose who they elect to this assembly... If we didn't have to go home, I'm fairly sure I could hav –"

"Please Rodney, don't finish this sentence," Sheppard cut him. "We're convinced you don't doubt your own abilities as a born leader, but perhaps people are not ready for... acknowledging these."

Zelenka rolled his eyes, Ronon snorted, Teyla fought hard to keep a poker face, while Atema and Malvin exchanged puzzled looks for lack of having spent enough time with Rodney McKay to have an idea about the extent of the man's ego. Although if the guy was anything like Jeannie McKay... yes, there was probably much subtext in the colonel's comment.

"UNSCHEDULED OFFWORLD ACTIVATION!" the loudspeaker broadcasted all over the place.

"Not that much 'unscheduled' for everyone..." Atema simply commented.

"What do you mean?" doctor Zelenka asked him.

"Well, doc, you were too busy keeping your nose in your computer, working on sending our guests here home," the nurse answered, "and other members of exploration teams were obviously too busy doing what they please since there is no other authority to decide anymore... so none of you paid attention to the weather forecast for M5R-179: our meteorologists expressed reservations about sending a team there and issued a gale warning with sixty percent chance of sea squall on the coast near the planet's stargate. But apparently one of the teams was so bored with staying on Atlantis that they jumped at the prospect of an offworld trading mission, brushing away the warnings. But now they're too happy to go home early to get warm and dry."

"Oh, come on!" Rodney disparagingly said, "your guys obviously need to toughen up! It's just a little wind and rain, that's not like they had to weather the monstrous storm-of-the-century, like _I_ did two years ago!"

"Oh, no..." Ronon sighed, sounding both exasperated and resigned, "here we go again..."

"I was there too, Rodney," John reminded him, "I weathered it too. As did Weir."

"Oh, yes," Radek told them, "we had this storm too, roughly around the same time. We almost lost the city that day. In fact it would have been destroyed if McKay and I didn't have the idea of using the storm's energy to power the city's shiel–"

He stopped dead, gawping, and stared fixedly at Rodney whose face was exactly mirroring Zelenka's. John's gaze went from the one to the other: obviously these two suddenly had an idea and behind their unmoving facial features and their sparkling eyes, the cogs in their brains were unmistakably turning at full speed.

Then Rodney snapped his fingers at Zelenka, Radek simply told him "let's go back to the lab", and they immediately took several strides toward the exit of the mess hall.

"Must be quite an idea if it makes you give up on having lunch!" Sheppard tauntingly shouted at McKay's retreating back.

Rodney made a sudden about-turn, silently walked back to their table and took Sheppard's apple-like fruit from his tray.

"Hey! My dessert!" John protested.

But McKay simply did another quick and silent half-turn and disappeared away with Zelenka.


End file.
